Joe Rogan Experience #2334 - Kash Patel

Joe Rogan 0:00 (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

Narrator 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music)

Kash Patel 0:12 Joe Rogan. All right. What's going on, man? How you doing, Joe?

Joe Rogan 0:15 Very good to see you, sir.

Kash Patel 0:16 Thanks for having me in Austin.

Joe Rogan 0:17 What is it like to be the head of the FBI? How weird is that?

Kash Patel 0:21 It's completely-

Joe Rogan 0:22 (laughs)

Kash Patel 0:22 ... F-ing wild.

Joe Rogan 0:23 (laughs)

Kash Patel 0:24 I mean, I don't even know how to describe it. I-

Joe Rogan 0:26 What was it... What did you think it was going to be like? And what was different once you got in there?

Kash Patel 0:33 Um, I thought that we were going to be able to come in with the movement that President Trump came in with, the administration to fix this... fix the errors that the leadership of the FBI previously made, not like the 37,000 and change people. And we are, we're doing a ton of work. Um, I didn't know we would be able to do it this quickly, is my surprise. And that, what that showed me was the people at the Bureau, literally people who've been there, 30-year agents, they're coming up to me and being like, "Dude, we wanted to do that 15 years ago."

Joe Rogan 1:10 Really?

Kash Patel 1:10 "We wanted to do that 10 years ago." And then- then my question was like, "You guys are the pros." Like, I'm just... Uh, my job as the director, I'm not chasing down bad guys, I don't know how to do that, is to give them what you need and get the hell out of the way. And they were like, "Dude, all they did was get in the way." So-

Joe Rogan 1:24 So like, what like- what kind of stuff pacifically- specifically did you start doing that they wanted to do 15 years ago?

Kash Patel 1:31 Simple. The one that I've taken the biggest heat for. You know, when I said, "Hey, there are... These are the statistics from the USG, so you can take them or leave them, right? I don't know where else to go because nobody else does these, right?" In the last calendar year, not this one, the year before last, 100,000 people were dying of drug overdoses a year. That's one every seven minutes. A child or kid was being raped every six and a half minutes in this country. And there were two homicides an hour in this country. And we have a 38,000-person workforce, and I said, "Okay. Where are- where are the agents? Where are our intel analysts? Where is everybody?" We got 55 field offices, we got 300 what we call RAs, resident agencies, so satellite offices to field offices in major cities. And they said, "Well, we've got 11,000 FBI employees in what we call the NCR, the National Capital Region." So if you take D.C. and you do a 50-mile, 60-mile radius around it, 11,000, almost a third of the workforce work there. And I said, "What the hell are they doing there?" They said, "Well, they mandated if you want a promotion, if you want to move up, you got to come back here and prioritize stuff here." So I said, "Look, we're moving agents and intel analysts to the field." And that's what I did. 1500 people are going to the field, because a third of the crime doesn't happen in Washington, D.C. and the 65 miles around it. And everybody was like, "We've been wanting to do this forever." I mean, just think about it-

Joe Rogan 2:50 Yeah.

Kash Patel 2:50 ... one agent out in Indian country, one agent out in Texas, Arkansas, Washington State prevents a homicide, conducts a major drug bust, stops a sh- a ton of fentanyl or meth from coming into our country. One agent can do that. And th- the agents that I talk to now from around the country are just stoked. Th-

Joe Rogan 3:10 That's awesome. That's great news. That really is great news, because the fentanyl thing scares the shit out of me. It really does.

Kash Patel 3:17 Well, it's one of the things I want to hammer down on. But whenever you want to get into that.

Joe Rogan 3:20 Yeah, please. Yeah.

Kash Patel 3:23 Whew.

Joe Rogan 3:23 It's so terrifying because, you know, we've shown it on the podcast, the amount that'll kill you.

Kash Patel 3:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:28 It's so small. It's like the- the tip of a pencil.

Kash Patel 3:31 Yeah, it's like point something something milligrams. It's not-

Joe Rogan 3:33 Yeah.

Kash Patel 3:33 It's nothing. I'll give you... I put this to big programming, I love doing this long-form stuff and this is the only long-form interview I'm going to do. I hope you know.

Joe Rogan 3:42 Oh, thank you.

Kash Patel 3:42 I do one interview-

Joe Rogan 3:43 I'm honored.

Kash Patel 3:43 I do one interview a month. One. And it's usually like a five-minute TV thing just to keep-

Joe Rogan 3:48 Right.

Kash Patel 3:49 ... abreast. And we do a lot of stuff on social media, but I've been looking forward to this for a long time. Even when I was on the campaign, I was just, uh, this is like the best way to get information out. So fentanyl, right? Everybody's like, "How do you attack fentanyl? How do you stop this stuff?" Okay. Yes, let's go after the gangs, excuse me, the, uh, narco-terrorists down in Mexico. 100%, you got to go after the cartels, the drug trafficking organizations. You got to shore up the southern border. And the president has done an amazing job at both of those things, made it a priority. So we have decreased the amount of fentanyl being moved around, let's say, right? But not necessarily coming into the United States. So where's the root of the problem? The CCP. So the fentanyl precursors, the stuff you need to make fentanyl comes from mainland China. That's it. Now, I'm sure like 1% of it comes from somewhere else in the world, but that's where it comes. They've got hundreds of companies standing up in mainland China shipping this stuff out into the world. Now their cover is that f- fentanyl has, and it does have a legitimate lawful purpose in terms of an anesthetic or medical use for, um, anesthesiology-related stuff, okay? So there's like a minimal use for it. And what the CCP has done is they've come out and said this is like the biggest like... Talk about the devil pulling the wool over the world's eyes. They're like, "We don't make fentanyl." They're right, they don't. They just give you all the ingredients for it and ship it to Mexico. And then what they did was, to trick the world, they came out and said, "Hey, we're gonna not sell precursor X." They're like, so now we're out of the fentanyl trade entirely. The problem is there's 14 other precursors you can use to make fentanyl and they're still shipping all of those. So what we did when I got to the Bureau is we stood up this massive enterprise to go after fentanyl precursor companies in mainland China. And they're probably not gonna like that. And what they're doing now to get cute is they're shipping that stuff not straight to here, they're going to places like India, and I'm also doing operations in India. And they're having the Mexican cartels now make this fentanyl down in Mexico still, but you know, instead of going right up to southern border and into America, you know what they're doing? They're flying it into Vancouver, they're taking the precursors up to Canada, manufacturing it up there and doing their global distribution routes from up there 'cause we were being so effective down south.

Joe Rogan 6:16 Oye.

Kash Patel 6:18 Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a huge lift, but part of it is Americans just don't understand the depth and depravity of fentanyl. But what's worse is, fentanyl, you don't hear of fentanyl deaths in China. You don't hear of fentanyl deaths in India. You don't really hear of fentanyl deaths in England, Australia, New Zealand, our Five Eyes partners in Canada. The Chinese, in my opinion, the CCP, have used it as a directed approach because we are their adversary, and they don't like us, and we don't like what they're doing when it comes to fentanyl. And their long-term game is, is this: how do I, in my opinion, kneecap the United States of America, our largest adversary? Well, why don't we go and take out generations of young men and women who might grow up to serve in the United States military or become a cop or become a teacher? And that's what they're doing when you wipe out tens of thousands of Americans a year. It's a long-term plan for them.

Joe Rogan 7:15 Oh. That is such a dark, dark thing.

Kash Patel 7:19 It is, but we got-

Joe Rogan 7:21 Ugh.

Kash Patel 7:21 We got... We're on it.

Joe Rogan 7:24 What else could be done, like with the Chinese companies? I mean, i- is there ever been any negotiation with Xi Jinping, with the United States, or the, like where you could lighten up tariffs or do something and make some sort of a deal? Or is it just-

Kash Patel 7:41 So-

Joe Rogan 7:41 ... so profitable for them that they're gonna do it no matter what, if they can?

Kash Patel 7:44 Here's the thing. They're not making a ton of money off of it. Right?

Joe Rogan 7:48 Oh, so it's really just for that purpose.

Kash Patel 7:50 Right. You could send fe- you could sell fentanyl precursors, and unless you jacked up the price to exorbitant amounts of money, they're not making a ton of money. And so, it's an all-of-government approach. So I'm working with guys like the Secretary of Treasury to do sanctions on some of these c- companies, right? Then I'm working with our Five Eyes partners, and our Five Eyes are the five English-speaking countries in the world, you know, uh, Canada, America, England, uh, New Zealand, and Australia, right? We share intelligence, we share classified intelligence on this stuff. So I'm asking them, I said, "Hey, it's not just affecting us. It will affect you and your population. The CCP just hasn't directed it at you yet," and they know that. And I said, "Guys, I need your help." I'm looking at intelligence reporting that shows fentanyl precursors are now in your country. The fentanyl itself isn't being deployed into your country, but it's there being manufactured. And so I'm asking for their help to shut down those factories and production facilities, and I'm asking the Mexican government's help to come and say, "Hey, your drug trafficking organizations are now exporting the manufacturing of fentanyl," and getting creative in the ways in which they obtain fentanyl precursors. So they'll say, "Oh, we didn't get it from China. We got it from India. We got it from, you know, wherever." And they're g- it's too cute by half. It's not like there's been a reduction in the amount of fentanyl precursors that mainland China produces. What there has been a reduction in is, is President Trump's administration's aggressive approach to just crush the fentanyl trafficking. And unfortunately, our adversaries adapt. We're so good down South on the border here, and we're so good in Mexico, that they're moving it elsewhere.

Joe Rogan 9:28 Jesus. God.

Kash Patel 9:30 We're gonna get them. I promise you. I promised the president and the American people. We will not have kids dying of fentanyl overdoses in our streets. Just give me a little bit more time. We have a massive operation going on around the world on this.

Joe Rogan 9:43 Well, that's great news. That's g- it's great to hear. So, um, the fe- the fentanyl, a lot of it is, uh, it's not just fentanyl overdoses, right? It's, it's opiate overdoses overall. How m- Is a lot of it because people get hooked on pills, and like, and then they want more, and then they go buy black market pills, and those are the ones that have fentanyl in it? Or is it m- molly and things like that that have been laced with fentanyl?

Kash Patel 10:11 So... Great question. Nobody asks these questions. It's probably why your show's number one. (laughs) Um, they are so demonic in their ways. They're like, "We'll make fentanyl, and people can go use fentanyl and get killed on fentanyl." Then what they do is they manufacture, as part of this lift, "they" being the drug trafficking organizations, once they get the precursors from the CCP, they take their pill presses and they make fake oxycodone. So like, literally, I'm just giving you an example. Make tens of thousands of pills of fake oxycodone, and we, we bust them for it. And in that fake pill is fentanyl. It's laced with fentanyl that kills people. Then the drug trafficking organizations, to make it appealing for the youth, shape this illicit narcotic in the form of like candy and gummy bears. So you hear about kids in New York who just bin- ha- happened to have like a trace amount, touching it somewhere, also dying from it. So they have absolutely no rules or boundaries whatsoever when it comes to how they deploy fentanyl to get into our population. It could be through another drug, it could be through a synthetic, it could be through a fake drug, or it could be like, "Hey..." And we've seized it. Thousands of pounds of material that looks like candy.

Joe Rogan 11:24 Are they doing it specifically to try to get people to overdose on candy? Or are they selling this candy as a drug?

Kash Patel 11:31 They're selling it as a drug.

Joe Rogan 11:32 Okay. Then they're just saying it looks like candy?

Kash Patel 11:35 It just looks appealing to kids, right? Like so, inner city youth-

Joe Rogan 11:38 Ugh.

Kash Patel 11:38 ... they're like, "Hey, put a pill down on the table, put a gummy bear down on the table." You know? A younger person's gonna be like, "Oh, that's cool. Let me try that." I mean, I can tell you stories from now until the entire show about high school kids on the verge of graduating, and they went out and took a pill that they thought was, you know, an upper, but it happened to be laced with fentanyl. They died. Their parents are calling.

Joe Rogan 12:02 (gasps) .

Kash Patel 12:02 They're destroyed. And people are like, "Well, we gotta go after the drug traffickers." I'm like, "We do, and we are." But what my job is to educate the American public on the root cause of the fentanyl that is destroying our society, and it's the fentanyl precursors. And I've asked, I literally just got off the phone-... with the Indian government. I said, "I need your help. This stuff's coming into your country, and then they're moving it from your country because India's not consuming fentanyl. They're not. No one's dying over there from fentanyl. But I need you and your help." So my FBI is over there, working with the heads of their government, law enforcement authorities, to say, "We're gonna find these companies that buy it, and we're gonna shut them down. We're gonna sanction them. We're gonna arrest them where we can. We're gonna indict them in America if we can. We're gonna indict them in India if we can, start indicting them in places like Canada, and the UK, and England, and Australia." This is a global problem. And the reason it's gotten so bad is because nobody did anything for four years. You know, people are like, "How do they stand this up?" Well, if you give the CCP, who has an endless amount of money to deploy and human capital, that's what happens. It metastasizes.

Joe Rogan 13:09 Why didn't anybody do anything for four years? Have you been able to figure that out?

Kash Patel 13:14 Look, to me, I'm a national security guy, and anything that kills 100,000 people a year is a national security crisis, right? It's what we call a Tier 1 threat. And the last administration did not classify the drug trafficking enterprise as a prime threat against the American people. And so what happens is, you reorient the system of intelligence collection operations. I mean, I'm not making this up. They said climate change is our biggest priority.

Joe Rogan 13:42 (laughs)

Kash Patel 13:42 DEI is our biggest priority. I mean, you guys have heard this, and you've had-

Joe Rogan 13:44 Yeah.

Kash Patel 13:44 ... guests on that say it. But these are the ramifications in real life. I only have X amount of people that can target something, right? Same with the CIA, same with the DOD. But if the United States government and Uncle Sam and your commander-in-chief said, "Hey, I need your X amount of people looking here," I can't clone that army to look back at fentanyl.

Joe Rogan 14:04 Right.

Kash Patel 14:04 Plus, we have to follow the chain of command.

Joe Rogan 14:07 It's so crazy that they would say climate change and DEI were the priorities for the FBI.

Kash Patel 14:14 Well, for the government.

Joe Rogan 14:15 For the government-

Kash Patel 14:15 Uh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:15 ... in total.

Kash Patel 14:16 So, I'll give you a better example. So, I was ch- in the end of the last Trump administration, I was Chief of Staff at the Department of Defense. One of the greatest jobs, at the time, (laughs) I thought, the greatest job I'd ever have. And when we left, we said, "Hey, you know, Iran's a huge threat. We got to, uh, never let up on the counterterrorism mission. We still have hostages out there we got to find and bring home. And the narcotics mission is a big priority." We handed off our playbook, and we said, "Look. This is not a political issue. This is protecting the American people and our allies. So, we hope you guys continue this effort." So, the DOD has this thing called CONOPs, Concept of Operations. The Department of Defense is 3 million employees, and a CONOP is how you move the machine of the Department of Defense. "Hey, we have a threat in INDOPACOM. How many carrier groups are we sending down there?" "We got a threat, uh, with government X. What are we doing operationally, kinetically? What are we doing intelligence collection?" That's a CONOP. The first Concept of Operation that the Biden administration launched at the Department of Defense was on climate change.

Joe Rogan 15:15 (laughs)

Kash Patel 15:16 You can't make this shit up.

Joe Rogan 15:18 What do you think that's all about? Like, as an outsider, as someone, like, looking at it, going, "I just don't understand." Like, where's the profit in this? Like, what, what is, what's the motive? Like, w- what would incentivize all these people to get on board with it without someone logically stepping in and saying, "Hey, this is not our top priority"?

Kash Patel 15:39 I think at its ... So, that was something I tried to answer when I was at a government for the last four years before I took this job.

Joe Rogan 15:47 (sniffs) .

Kash Patel 15:47 And the answer laid in the first Trump term. We were doing things so effectively on national security that hadn't been done before, in such speed and volume, that the media hated us for it because the- the other party had tried to do it and failed. And so-

Joe Rogan 16:08 Like what, what things specifically?

Kash Patel 16:10 So, when it comes to ... Okay, hostages. I can talk about that forever, too. Used to be counterterroring was a big portfolio. I ran it for the White House and National Security Council in the first Trump administration. We brought home ... People don't know this. President Trump, in his first term, brought home and rescued over 50 hostages and detainees from around the world. That's more than every president before him combined.

Joe Rogan 16:32 Wow.

Kash Patel 16:33 Did you hear about the-

Joe Rogan 16:34 Not a peep.

Kash Patel 16:35 ... the- the successes of reuniting families with lost loved ones from Africa and the Middle East, or these operations that the president was courageous enough to greenlight to go into places like Afghanistan and do these hostage rescue ops and use SEAL Team Six and Delta, or take out guys like Baghdadi and Soleimani? President Trump's directive was simple. "We are going to protect the homeland. We're not going to endanger the lives of our armed forces and our intelligence community, but their job is to protect the homeland." And he said go, and we went. And I think there was such a resounding success that the media had such a hatred for President Trump and his administration. They just said, one, "We're not going to give you the credit," two, "We're going to put out a ton of disinformation," which we can get into, and three, when they came time to transition governments from Trump to Biden, they just said, "We're not gonna do," and this is my opinion, "We're not gonna do any of the stuff that worked, because then we'll have to attribute it to Trump's policies. So, we're gonna go off on our end." And I keep asking people to prove me wrong. Like, tell me something you did in that administration that carried out the apolitical national security mission to a T. Right? I mean, you had the secretary of defense in the Biden administration go down, go to a hospital, MIA, literally AWOL, and didn't tell the commander-in-chief, and broke the National Command Authority. There is a reason, and I was the guy responsible for that nuclear football for part of my time at the White House-

Joe Rogan 18:06 (sniffs) .

Kash Patel 18:06 ... that that thing ... And there's an unbroken chain of command between the president of United States, the secretary of defense, and the National Command Authority at all times, because shit happens. And what if it had happened in that one or two weeks the guy was in the hospital, and maybe something didn't? We don't even know, right? But no one, including the president, didn't know the secretary of defense was in the hospital. I can't tell you how big of a cataclysmic failure for the national security mission that is. And what I tell people when they're like, "Ah, it's all right. It's not that big of a deal." Well-... what if Hexeth took a week out and said, "I'm going to the hospital. I'm not telling anyone." What do you think the media would do to that guy-

Joe Rogan 18:42 (laughs)

Kash Patel 18:43 ... and Trump-

Joe Rogan 18:43 Yeah.

Kash Patel 18:43 ... if that were to happen now?

Joe Rogan 18:45 Yeah, it would be catastrophic.

Kash Patel 18:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:47 Yeah. Um, so this person went to the hospital for what? What was the-

Kash Patel 18:53 I keep losing my flame. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 18:54 Oh, you got the... Is it in the lighter over there?

Kash Patel 18:56 No, I got it. Yeah, you got it. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:58 What was, uh... What were they in the hospital for?

Kash Patel 19:02 So, Secretary Austin was in the hospital for medical issues, and I'm not saying you shouldn't have treatment-

Joe Rogan 19:06 Right, but there should be someone else that's-

Kash Patel 19:08 There's- there's a plan in place.

Joe Rogan 19:09 Right.

Kash Patel 19:09 The Deputy Secretary of Defense comes in, you know, every time a senior goes out-

Joe Rogan 19:14 Right.

Kash Patel 19:14 ... there is a con- continuity of government plan in place. "Oh, you're out for a weekend treatment? No problem. I'm off-"

Joe Rogan 19:18 But they just hid all this?

Kash Patel 19:20 They hid it. And-

Joe Rogan 19:21 That's s- That's insane.

Kash Patel 19:22 And we broke it. We- we discovered it and we broke it, and it wasn't the only time he did it (laughs) . It was the second time. Or the guy would end up doing it a- a- another time.

Joe Rogan 19:31 Why would they do that? Just to hide the fact that they're sick?

Kash Patel 19:34 Well, that, I think, is up for debate. Like, people are old and they get sick. Like, no big deal.

Joe Rogan 19:39 Right.

Kash Patel 19:40 You know, everybody needs treatment. Everybody's got to go to Walter Reed or whatever.

Joe Rogan 19:42 But do you think that he thought it would hurt him politically if he looked weak?

Kash Patel 19:47 I'm not... Yeah, I don't know-

Joe Rogan 19:48 Speculation. Right.

Kash Patel 19:49 Yeah, I don't know if I can answer that.

Joe Rogan 19:50 Right.

Kash Patel 19:50 I just... And- and the secretary at the time, Secretary Lloyd Austin, was like a 45-year military man. It's not like this was new to him.

Joe Rogan 19:57 Right.

Kash Patel 19:57 He'd been doing it his whole life. Next man up, you know?

Joe Rogan 20:00 So he had made a decision to try to keep it private.

Kash Patel 20:02 Intentionally. And he would come out later to say, "Well, oh, I just wanted to keep it private." And I said, "Hey, man, your life when you're the secretary of defense, director of the FBI, director of the CIA, it ain't about being private. That's gone. You signed up to serve the mission. And when you do that knowingly, you have literally violated the National Command Authority."

Joe Rogan 20:24 Wow. So you were saying there's a bunch of misinformation that was put out-

Kash Patel 20:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:31 ... or disinformation. Like, what was that?

Kash Patel 20:33 Whew. Pick your... So my thing is all roads lead to Russiagate, right?

Joe Rogan 20:37 Right.

Kash Patel 20:37 That's where it all started. I was, uh, coming out of, uh, my tour at JSOC as a civilian and- and DOJ and, um, I would end up going to Congress to run this thing called Russiagate, which at the time no one knew anything. It was just a whatever, and then it became what it became. And I would be the guy, the lead investigator on the Hill who said, "Hey man, look, they lied in the FISA application." Let me give you Russiagate in 90 seconds.

Joe Rogan 21:02 Okay.

Kash Patel 21:04 Could you imagine a time in the United States of America in the 21st century where a political party would go overseas and acquire fake foreign intelligence from a foreign intelligence officer funded by donations to that political party in the United States of America, then take that material, package it, walk it to the FBI, literally, and say, "Hey, we need you to surveil the opponent of our political party who happens to be running for the President of the United States," then convince the FBI to go into a secret federal FISA court that I used to use to manhunt terrorists and say, "Hey, I need you to wiretap essentially all the comms in and around Trump camp because of the material we gave you," and then have that FBI lie to the federal court and the judge in that warrant application, which is a felony, and intentionally remove information of innocence from that application just to get it above the threshold so the judge would sign it? That's Russiagate. That's what they did. And you remember the years and years of reporting surrounding Russiagate. "The FBI would never lie. They would never do that. The leadership there is above reproach." James Comey, Andy McCabe, Peter Strzok, the list goes on. "We caught him red-handed. We caught him. You've seen the text messages, you've seen the documentation, you've seen the reports." But when I did that, when I exposed that initially (sniffs) as a staffer on the Hill, (laughs) Adam Schiff comes out and has his cronies leak to the world that I am acting as- as a genocidal dictator. There was actually an article that called me-

Joe Rogan 22:41 Genocidal-

Kash Patel 22:42 Hang on. It gets better.

Joe Rogan 22:43 ... dictator?

Kash Patel 22:43 Yeah, no, it gets better.

Joe Rogan 22:44 How do you get to be a dictator? (laughs)

Kash Patel 22:45 I don't know. Genocidal ones, I don't know, right? Like, you know, it's- it's a twofer.

Joe Rogan 22:49 Oh. (laughs)

Kash Patel 22:49 Uh-

Joe Rogan 22:49 That's... These words don't even mean anything anymore.

Kash Patel 22:52 No, he... Literally, there's an article out there that they called me Torquemada, the guy from the Spanish Inquisition.

Joe Rogan 22:58 Jesus Christ.

Kash Patel 22:59 And I was a staffer. So the rule was you can ding elected representatives all you want in the media. You don't touch staffers. They didn't care because they knew what I had unearthed was the biggest political criminal scheme ever perpetrated by portions of the FBI leadership and other people in the intelligence community. So the-

Joe Rogan 23:18 In coordination with the media.

Kash Patel 23:20 In coordination and that's-

Joe Rogan 23:21 Who could have investigated it.

Kash Patel 23:22 But hang on, that's the kicker.

Joe Rogan 23:24 Yeah.

Kash Patel 23:24 So what people don't know about Russiagate that weren't paying attention was that warrant that initially kicked off the FISA surveillance on the Trump campaign writ large was substantiated by FBI leaks to the media. Two of the articles cited in that warrant from, uh, I think Mother Jones and Yahoo News, were leaks of information from the same leadership at the FBI, Peter Strzok, Andy McCabe, James Comey and company. And then they, in the application, would be like, "Hey, it's not just us saying that Trump's a Russian asset," right? "Look at this article, Mr. Judge, on the federal FISA court." And they included it in that application. So this was a coordinated conspiracy to take down your political opponent by weaponizing government. And now, I say that now in 2025, when I said that in 2017, whatever it was, people were like, "You're out of your effing mind." And I was like, "Look, man, I'm just showing you the facts. I'm not making this up. I'm showing you the application. I'm showing you the documentation." And that's when they came after me, um, and it hasn't stopped ever since. But the- the damage they did, they, the media and the people that wanted to take out Trump... And I didn't care what you thought about... And remember, back then, I hadn't met Trump, never spoken to him, didn't know him. I took that job at Congress on one condition. I said, "Whatever we find, we're putting out."I'd been in for 16 years at that point. Democrats, Republicans. I was a national security guy, intel guy. That's what I wanted to do. Chase terrorists, chase bad guys, bring hostages home, and help protect the homeland. And I said, "I didn't know if Trump did this. I didn't know if he was colluding with whoever." I didn't know it would turn out like this.

Joe Rogan 25:08 (sniffs)

Kash Patel 25:08 That they would actually manufacture and make it up. But half of America to this day still believes the narrative that the CNNs of the world pushed for five years. And if you look on their shows now, Russiagate keeps coming back up, because we keep exposing the documents that showed how bad these guys were. And most Americans are like, "No, no," they're already convinced. So, in order to fix that diseased temple, it is just that much harder of a lift for me to go back into the FBI. We're gonna get it done, but it takes so much more communication and so much more energy to get after the American people and say, "You were lied to." Because that's the hardest thing I think people can ever admit to themselves.

Joe Rogan 25:49 Right.

Kash Patel 25:49 "You were lied to." I went out for years and created a life cycle out of this lie of Russiagate. I went on TV, I made money, I wrote books. I sold political advertisements based on it. I, I educated my children based on it, because I thought it was the truth. And some of 'em have come back and said, "Yeah, we got it wrong," but most haven't. And that's the disinformation seed, in my opinion, that started it all. And then you could talk about things like January 6th or, you know, pick your poison, rescuing hostage or what have you. The media just never got on board. They kneecapped Trump from the beginning by participating in the Russiagate, uh, collusion conspiracy with the FBI.

Joe Rogan 26:32 God, it's so crazy that someone could do something like that, and a whole enormous group of people could do something like that-

Kash Patel 26:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:39 ... with no repercussions. And to be able to operate and, you know, say they're the trusted source in news. And you were part of something that was one of the biggest scandals in political history.

Kash Patel 26:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 26:51 But just because of, because it's targeted towards Trump, people looked the other way. Like, if that was targeted towards Obama, could you imagine how psychotic the response would be? People would be up in arms and furious. But the same people that would be up in arms and furious if somebody tried to do that for Obama are completely silent-

Kash Patel 27:10 Just-

Joe Rogan 27:10 ... if it's happening to Trump.

Kash Patel 27:11 Yeah, just think about it. What if me, as the FBI Director in the Trump administration, right, during a presidential cycle went out there and said, "Hey, Republican National Committee, do you guys have dirt on whoever's running for the Democratic nomination to be President of the United States? If you don't, can you go overseas and pay a foreign national, who used to be an MI6 guy, get me some bogus intel? Then I, as the FBI director, will authorize the warrant. I'll leak to the media while I'm doing it, take their articles, put it in that warrant, and then go surveil the opponent so he doesn't get elected." I would be in prison-

Joe Rogan 27:44 That's so crazy.

Kash Patel 27:45 ... which I should be, for doing anything like that.

Joe Rogan 27:47 That's so crazy.

Kash Patel 27:48 And that's what people want accountability for, and that's what... You asked me at the beginning of the show, "You know, what's the hardest part?" I'm like, "Hey, I'm the guy that is exposing and giving you the accountability from 2017 onwards, but I wasn't the guy in charge of putting people in prison and arresting them for this conduct." And so the other education campaign I have to go on is there's this thing called a statute of limitations. I can't prosecute people for their crimes in the past that the statute of limitations has run. And I'll give you a great example that goes back, right back to Russiagate. So, one of the big, uh, systems I've created, maybe because of my time in Russiagate, is I'm committed to Congressional oversight. I'm committed to giving Congress the documents they need to do their work and give them to the American people, unredacted, no classification BS. You want it, you get it. So we, we... Just think about this. Me, as the director of the FBI, the former Russiagate guy, when I first got to the Bureau, found a room that Comey and others hid from the world in the Hoover Building, full of documents and computer hard drives that no one had ever seen or heard of.

Joe Rogan 29:02 What?

Kash Patel 29:02 Locked the key and hid access, and just said, "No one's ever gonna find this place."

Joe Rogan 29:09 What?

Kash Patel 29:10 Yeah. So my guys are going through that right now.

Joe Rogan 29:13 What's in there?

Kash Patel 29:14 A lot of stuff.

Joe Rogan 29:15 (laughs)

Kash Patel 29:16 I mean, that's the thing. People are like, "Well, okay, go arrest him." And I'm like, "Okay, well how about you let me run a methodical investigation while I give over information?" One of the things we gave over before this, uh, the, the room deal was, I don't know if you remember who Nellie Ohr is. It doesn't really matter. Nellie Ohr's husband, Bruce Ohr, was like the number four at the Department of Justice, and he was the one who introduced the world to Christopher Steele, the guy that started Russiagate. Well, the entire time her husband was doing that at DOJ, she, Nellie Ohr, was working on an outside contract to dig up dirt on Donald Trump. So she goes to The Hill and testifies as a result of our investigation, right, under oath. She said, "I never worked..." And I'm paraphrasing. "I never worked with my husband on any of that. I would never do that." Well, what did Grassley put out just yesterday? Two days ago? The Nellie Ohr documentation that the FBI hid to the world, that we gave them, where Nellie Ohr is caught red-handed providing information to her husband, thumb drives related to Trump-Russia collusion, directly proving that Nellie Ohr li- lied to Congress. Felony. Can't prosecute her. Statute of limitations is gone. That's just one example.

Joe Rogan 30:25 Wow. What a dirty business.

Kash Patel 30:30 Yeah, ain't it? (sighs)

Joe Rogan 30:31 Politics is just, it is just the dirtiest. And in this age of transparency, because of, you know, the internet and social media, uh, and independent news, like everybody knows about it now. Like if this, if the, if CNN and, you know, and all these left wing news sources, MSNBC, and it was only Fox on the right, and that was all we had, and we had no internet-

Kash Patel 30:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:53 ... all this would be completely secret. No one would've known the, the Russiagate collusion, that, that, all that stuff would be...... people would really think it's a true story, it would probably take decades before someone wrote a book where people started to really take it seriously and really realize that there was something fucked up about it.

Kash Patel 31:12 Yeah. Um, I'm not allowed to plug my book, so I won't. But I did write a book about it.

Joe Rogan 31:16 You can plug your book. Why can't you plug your book?

Kash Patel 31:17 I think there's some rules on it about government-

Joe Rogan 31:19 I can plug your book. What's your book? Give it to me.

Kash Patel 31:21 Here you go. Ah, this one's for you anyway, Government Gangsters, bestseller.

Joe Rogan 31:23 Oh, Government Gangsters by Kash Patel. Go buy it.

Kash Patel 31:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 31:26 Plugged.

Kash Patel 31:28 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 31:28 You didn't plug it, I did.

Kash Patel 31:29 I love it. The-

Joe Rogan 31:31 Did you do the audio?

Kash Patel 31:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:33 You read it?

Kash Patel 31:34 Oh, I, I got somebody to, to do it. I, my voice is not for radio or TV.

Joe Rogan 31:38 Ah, come on man. You got a great voice.

Kash Patel 31:39 Ah, I appreciate that. It's, uh, it's taken time and a lot of cigars to get to here.

Joe Rogan 31:43 It would be good for you to read it. They should let you read it.

Kash Patel 31:45 Yeah. Well, I mean, what's in there, what ... But the reason I wrote it is, one, I never thought I was going back into government service. And two, part of the job to completing the mission was exposing what people didn't ever think could happen in the United States of America. And it was not just disinformation and misinformation, but your government and leaders in government weaponizing it for political purposes. Not just FBI and DOJ, but others, and the IC. And what it shows you is the backend of that too, the rewards. Right? The guys that ... wrapping it back up, or re- reversing it back up, the guys that were in charge of Russiagate at the FBI, Andy McCabe, right? Remember what this guy did. Andy McCabe agreed to set in motion a plan with the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at the time, to have him wear a wire into the Oval Office to record President Trump. That, those documents we found, we released them.

Joe Rogan 32:42 Whoa.

Kash Patel 32:43 Put that aside. While Andy McCabe was in charge of the Trump-Russia gate collusion investigation, his wife was running for political office in the state of Virginia. Do you know who's funding her campaign for political office to the tune of $600,000? Hillary Clinton world, who happened to be running against Donald Trump. Do you know what Andy McCabe did? He leaked information about the Clinton investigation to the media, unlawfully, as the Deputy Director of the FBI.

Joe Rogan 33:11 Pshew.

Kash Patel 33:12 Got caught by us. Then lied about it to federal authorities. And that's the reason Andy McCabe was dismissed. Do you know what the Biden administration did? They allowed him to retire out of the FBI with full benefits.

Joe Rogan 33:31 Wow.

Kash Patel 33:32 He got rewarded. Do you know what he does now? He's on CNN. You know who's also on CNN?

Joe Rogan 33:36 (laughs)

Kash Patel 33:36 Peter Strzok, the head of the counterintelligence unit that had that affair with Lisa Page, who basically put out those text messages, who was running that investigation with Andy McCabe and said, "Trump people smell in Walmart, and we're never gonna let him win. I have an insurance policy." That guy's on CNN. So, they get rewarded for putting on this disinformation campaign, for this illegal activity, because the media will never correct, or some portion of the media will never correct the record. Remember, these guys got Pulitzers. New York Times, same thing. These guys got the biggest award in journalism, they were proven wrong, not by me, by the own evidence created by ... You know how I caught these guys? Because these guys were so arrogant, they would write everything down, and I found the documents.

Joe Rogan 34:20 (laughs) Why would they write everything down?

Kash Patel 34:22 They're so arrogant. T- they think, "No one's gonna catch us. I'm gonna write everything down, we're gonna put it in a lock box, we're gonna put it in a vault, and no one's gonna find it." Well, you know what? I found the vault, and now I'm going to work.

Joe Rogan 34:34 Wow. Now, is there a statute of limitations on those crimes?

Kash Patel 34:38 So, generally, the statute of limitations on crimes, for process crimes that we call them, it's five years. But if you can tie them to an overarching conspiracy, there is no statute of limitations. So, if there was more egregious conduct that no one knew about before, that we are just finding and we are investigating, then we'll have to re-look at it. The one thing we will do is put out all that information to the American public, once we actually get through it. And we'll give it to Congress, and if we can work with our partners at DOJ to come up with a prosecution, that'll be their decision. We'll, we'll do it.

Joe Rogan 35:11 The disturbing thing about all this, to me, is how people on the left are willing to look the other way. Because this is a, just a dangerous precedent. If, if the federal government is doing this, and they're doing this to someone who you consider an enemy, what's to stop this from doing it against your candidate? Like, this is unprecedented behavior that's tolerated and coordinated with the media. Like, that's dangerous-

Kash Patel 35:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:37 ... for the country. It's dan- ... But people are so ideologically captured, they're so-

Kash Patel 35:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 35:43 ... they're so locked into their party and, "By any means necessary, we gotta get Trump out." And they push that narrative so hard that they're willing to do a very un-American thing.

Kash Patel 35:56 Yeah. And my goal, now that I'm back in government, is to make sure this doesn't happen again ever. That's the goal.

Joe Rogan 36:05 How can you do that? How can you make sure it doesn't happen again ever?

Kash Patel 36:08 Exposing it all. And I know there are people ... And look, (laughs) people keep calling me and saying, "When are you gonna arrest everyone? When are you gonna go out there and arrest everybody that did everything to Donald Trump?" I was like, "First of all, you guys were barking at people who were in the seat before me to do that, and they didn't. They failed." The difference between me and that guy is, one, I'm the guy that exposed it. Two, I didn't tell you this, I was the guy they targeted. So, while I was doing the Russiagate investigation, do you know what Trump's own DOJ, Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General of the Department of Justice, Christopher Wray, then director of the FBI, did to me and a dozen other staffers who were working Russiagate? They subpoenaed all of our information while I was running the Russiagate investigation. We wouldn't find out for five years. You wanna know why? Because these guys were so vindictive, they went to the federal court and not only got a search warrant, they got a judge to say to all the telecom companies, Google, Facebook, everybody else, your banking companies, everybody, "Do not tell them for five years that we authorized this subpoena."So, I just found that out last year.

Joe Rogan 37:13 Wow.

Kash Patel 37:14 This is how hard... This is what I'm trying to show. It's not a Republican and Dem- or Democratic thing, right? It's an all-hands-on approach to protect the leadership that was so corrupt, to protect themselves and their actions and their friends. My mission is to educate the world that this happened. And as director of the FBI, I have a responsibility. I'm not just going to bring a case because somebody hurt me. They did, and they continue to do it. Shit, my house just got swatted yesterday.

Joe Rogan 37:43 What?

Kash Patel 37:43 Yeah. But-

Joe Rogan 37:45 You got swatted?

Kash Patel 37:45 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:46 The head of the FBI gets swatted?

Kash Patel 37:50 Yeah. Yeah. These people play... It's- it's the ultimate height of hypocrisy. They have two sets of rules: one against you, and one for them. And what I want to do is lay out that entire body of work for the American people with Congress, and I'm doing it with guys like, uh, Grassley and Jordan and Kennedy and Rand Paul on COVID-19. And we can talk about the origins. We actually have some pretty cool developments on that front. And let the American people know that my mission has always been to put out the truth, whatever the consequences are, whoever it's against, like I did when I signed up for Russia Gate. If Donald Trump was a Russian asset and I proved it, I was telling the world that. That's what matters. And if we can hold people accountable in terms of indictments, then we'll work with our partners at DOJ. But what I'm asking people is, don't trust me. I don't care about that. Look at what I have done and what we have done. That's the guy that's now in charge of the FBI. His leadership team is in place. We've got great partners at DOJ. We're the ones working all in all this stuff. And, and look, let's just, let's just get to it because I know it's on people's minds. Epstein, right? The reason people are pissed off about that is the same, same thing, right? 20 years ago, or whenever it was, 2006, '7, '8, Epstein gets his sweetheart plea deal, right-

Joe Rogan 39:16 Right.

Kash Patel 39:16 ... after committing the most horrific cli- crimes on planet Earth. Right? I wasn't in, I wasn't in power there. I wasn't in place there. I had, you know, nothing to do with it. But people were rightfully pissed. I mean, this guy was committing the most grotesque as- acts you can against children. And the media spins up about it. Many in the media protected him. Why? Because of his relationships, who he knew, who his bankers were, who his colleagues were, who was on the island and stuff like that.

Joe Rogan 39:42 Right.

Kash Patel 39:42 Some pretty powerful human beings. And so when you peel back the- the layer, and then you... And then what happened? The Trump administration, the last go-round, decided, "No, no. We're not gonna let that go. We're gonna investigate him." Right? They charge him, they indict him, and he's awaiting trial. And I've said it, Dan Bongino said it, we've reviewed all the information, and the American public is gonna get as much as we can release. He killed himself. Do you think... Let's play out the logical conclusion to this. Do you think that myself, Bongino, and others would participate in hiding information about Epstein's grotesque activities, or do you think we would also participate in not prosecuting people we had evidence to prosecute people on? The problem is, there's been like 15 years of people coming in and creating fictions about this that doesn't exist. Where's the videotape of an Epstein island of X, Y, and Z committing these frauds? Why haven't you given it to us? Do you really think I wouldn't give that to you if it existed? I'm working my ass off, along with the leadership at the Bureau and DOJ, to get you what we're allowed to give you. And you're gonna get the video of the cell, and you're gonna see for yourself. And we will never be able to convince everyone.

Joe Rogan 41:01 Okay. Let's, let's get into that. So, what did you think before you got into office? Did you think that Epstein was murdered?

Kash Patel 41:09 No.

Joe Rogan 41:09 No suspicion at all that-

Kash Patel 41:11 But I have a different background, right?

Joe Rogan 41:12 Right.

Kash Patel 41:12 So, I was a public defender back in the day. I used to spend a lot of time in jails and a lot of time in segregated housing units. SHUs, as we call them, right? And so, um, and I've known people that have committed suicide in these cells. And I know how you get in, how you get out, who works the system. And so the way, based on public information at the time, that he ended up port-... The pictures and him hanging himself, I was like, "Man, that guy killed himself." It's- There's just no way that you could have run an op and had people go into that cell and not have any video of it and not have any people come out and say, "Hey, yeah. I saw that guy. He shouldn't have been there, the guard or this guy." There's just no access points into places like this in the detention center he was in, which I've been in.

Joe Rogan 42:01 So, correct me if I'm wrong, but what I was told, what I'd read, was that the guards were not paying attention or were sleeping.

Kash Patel 42:10 Well-

Joe Rogan 42:10 Right?

Kash Patel 42:11 Yeah. And in short order, you'll see it. And-

Joe Rogan 42:13 Is that, is that correct?

Kash Patel 42:14 Well, it's hard to surmise that from a video, right? Like-

Joe Rogan 42:16 Right?

Kash Patel 42:17 ... where they like... You know. And look, do guards doze off on the night shift? Yeah. But no one can get in to the cell. And if they had gotten in to the cell, you would see it.

Joe Rogan 42:27 But we were told that the cameras were down.

Kash Patel 42:29 Well, I don't know who said that. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:31 But that was, that was in the news.

Kash Patel 42:33 Um, we're giving you all the footage we have.

Joe Rogan 42:36 So, why wasn't that released, like, immediately? Why, why did this speculation escalate?

Kash Patel 42:44 I think you'd have to ask, uh, who ever the Attorney General back then was, Bill Barr.

Joe Rogan 42:48 Did you ever see... Do you remember that HBO autopsy show? Dr. Michael Baden? He's a famous forensic-

Kash Patel 42:56 I don't think I've seen that.

Joe Rogan 42:57 ... scientist. So, uh, he's a pathologist, and he reviewed the case, and it was his determination that it was a homicide because of the way his neck was broken.

Kash Patel 43:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 43:08 And what he said was it was indicative of a ligature strangulation, and it was because of the positioning on the neck where the marks were, that it wasn't indicative of someone hanging by their weight, which would have been higher on the chin. And there's a specific break of the bones and the vertebrae that's consistent with someone who is just strangled to death.

Kash Patel 43:26 Mm-hmm.I, I haven't seen it. I'll definitely take a look at it, 'cause that's part of my job. But-

Joe Rogan 43:32 You haven't seen that?

Kash Patel 43:33 The report on that?

Joe Rogan 43:34 Yeah.

Kash Patel 43:34 No, I haven't looked at that. Uh- (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 43:35 Did you see any c- w- what, what, did, was there any other autopsy done other than the official one?

Kash Patel 43:43 Not to my knowledge. But if there was, you'll get it. And that's what we're doing.

Joe Rogan 43:46 See if you can find that doc- Dr. Michael Baden thing.

Kash Patel 43:49 Yeah. No, 100%.

Joe Rogan 43:49 Do you remember that show, the HBO show?

Kash Patel 43:51 No.

Joe Rogan 43:51 Pretty cool show.

Kash Patel 43:52 Yeah. Uh-

Joe Rogan 43:52 So this guy, Dr. Michael Baden, he had a long career of catching murderers, you know, exhuming bodies, finding trace amounts of poisons, different kinds of things, and fi-

Kash Patel 44:01 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 44:01 It was a crazy show, like all these wild ways people-

Kash Patel 44:04 Oh. Well, I love watching shows, and I spend a lot of time on planes, so.

Joe Rogan 44:06 Yeah, it was an old show.

Kash Patel 44:07 Okay.

Joe Rogan 44:07 It was a show, like, from the early 2000s, I believe. Um, but this guy was like, you know, this very well-respected forensic scientist who would analyze these bodies and-

Kash Patel 44:18 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 44:19 ... it was his determination that he was murdered.

Kash Patel 44:22 Yeah. And my job, going back to the core of what I've been doing since I studied Russiagate, was to get-

Joe Rogan 44:28 Right.

Kash Patel 44:28 ... and is to get everybody the information.

Joe Rogan 44:31 When did you get... Here, "Epstein's autopsy points to homicide. Pathologist hired by brother claims. New York City medical examiner strongly disputed the claim that the evidence from the autopsy suggested strangulation." So let's go to the f-... By the way, this is The New York Times, and they never lie.

Kash Patel 44:46 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:47 (laughs) The, the private pathologist, Dr. Michael Baden, said to the morning TV show, Fox & Friends, Mr. Epstein experienced a number of injuries, among them a broken bone in his neck, that are extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation. "I think the evidence points to homicide rather than suicide," said Dr. Baden, who observed the autopsy done by city officials. Dr. Baden, a former New York City medical examiner and a Fox News contributor said, "I have not seen in 50 years where that occurred in suicidal hanging case." Uh, findings by Dr. Baden were strongly disputed by the city's chief medical examiner, Dr. Barbara Sampson, who previously ruled that Mr. Epstein's death on August 10th in the Metropolitan Correctional Center was a suicide. "I stand firmly behind our determination of the cause and manner of death in this case," Dr. Sampson said in the interview on Wednesday. She added, "In general, fractures of the hyoid bone and cartilage can be seen in suicides and homicides." The hyoid bone is near the Adam's apple. Dr. Sampson also dismissed Dr. Baden's contention that the circumstances around Mr. Epstein's death suggested other people may have been involved. She said her office had done a complete investigation, taking into consideration information gathered by law enforcement in the making, in making the determination.

Kash Patel 46:04 So, this is a perfect example of going back to my public defender and prosecutor days.

Joe Rogan 46:08 Mm-hmm.

Kash Patel 46:09 This is what we call a war of experts.

Joe Rogan 46:12 Right. Right.

Kash Patel 46:12 You can always find someone-

Joe Rogan 46:14 Right.

Kash Patel 46:14 ... to come in and say the opposite.

Joe Rogan 46:16 Right.

Kash Patel 46:16 And I used to do it all the time. I mean, I represented some of the worst humans that you can possibly imagine on Earth. Literally, the guys that, uh, were trafficking children from Mexico into America. And you could put up a professional expert to say... And this is what's gonna go on forever. And my job is not the forever. My job is to get you absolutely everything that we can give you. And that's what we're gonna do.

Joe Rogan 46:40 When did you become aware of this video that showed that no one had gone in and out of the cell?

Kash Patel 46:45 Um, recently. Uh-

Joe Rogan 46:47 So why was it recent, though? I mean, if this death was... How long ago was this death? Two years?

Kash Patel 46:52 Uh, about 2019.

Narrator 46:53 Couple-

Joe Rogan 46:53 2019?

Kash Patel 46:54 2019.

Joe Rogan 46:55 Oh, really? Wow, time flies. So six years. W-

Kash Patel 47:00 Well, again, that's part of what I'm gonna try to answer for you.

Joe Rogan 47:02 Jeffrey Epstein Jail CCTV Erased by Technical Errors. Whoopsies. (laughs)

Kash Patel 47:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:11 But you see how anybody on the outs-... I mean, this is like a perfect storm-

Kash Patel 47:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:14 ... for some-

Kash Patel 47:15 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:15 Can you pull that article up so we can read what it says, Jimmy? "US prosecutor said the jail mistakenly saved footage from the wrong cell." Sorry. "Epstein, a convicted sex offender, first tried to kill himself in July of last year and hanged himself in jail on-"

Kash Patel 47:29 Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.

Joe Rogan 47:29 Yep.

Kash Patel 47:30 Reread that line.

Joe Rogan 47:32 That he first tried to kill himself in July of last year?

Kash Patel 47:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:35 Yeah.

Kash Patel 47:35 How much of the American public do you think knows that?

Joe Rogan 47:37 I didn't know that until right now.

Kash Patel 47:38 There you go.

Joe Rogan 47:39 Maybe I heard it and forgot. Did you ever hear it, Jimmy?

Narrator 47:41 Well, he was on, that's why he was on suicide watch, I think.

Joe Rogan 47:43 Oh, okay.

Kash Patel 47:45 So, a guy-

Joe Rogan 47:45 ... hanged himself in jail in August while serving trial on federal sex-trafficking charges. He pleaded not guilty to abusing dozens of girls, some as young as 14.

Narrator 47:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:54 "Soon after Epstein's death in August, two of the CCC- uh, CCTV cameras outside his cell had malfunctioned and were being examined by the FBI. He was found semi-conscious in his prison cell with injuries on his neck on 25 of July-

Kash Patel 48:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:07 ... after this incident. He was placed on suicide watch."

Kash Patel 48:10 I'm not saying every single camera in the place was working. I'm saying we've got footage, and you're getting it.

Joe Rogan 48:15 Mm-hmm.

Kash Patel 48:16 And it, then you can make up your own mind, and-

Joe Rogan 48:19 Right.

Kash Patel 48:20 ... the theories can continue. But my job is to give you the information.

Joe Rogan 48:23 So, you, you became aware of this footage recently?

Kash Patel 48:25 The ones that we're looking at, yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:26 Right.

Kash Patel 48:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:27 And so, but this is, like, an article from quite a while ago that was saying that the footage was mistakenly erased.

Kash Patel 48:33 Look, I mean, goes back to the same, ask the people that were in power then. I mean, I get it that you wanna hold me to account for their actions and-

Joe Rogan 48:41 No, I'm not saying-

Kash Patel 48:42 Not you, not you. The-

Joe Rogan 48:42 I'm not saying that.

Kash Patel 48:43 Not you. The, just, the, the public in general, and that's okay.

Joe Rogan 48:46 What's confusing to everybody today... First of all, it's very confusing because AI can kind of make anything. You know, it's, which has got to be a bizarre position for you to be in-

Kash Patel 48:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:55 ... when you're looking at videos. I mean, I've watched Viking videos that looked real as fuck, you know?

Kash Patel 48:59 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:59 (laughs) They just make Viking towns. I mean, it's really quite incredible what they're doing now.

Kash Patel 49:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:05 And it, it accelerates every month. I mean, I talked to Elon about it, and he said, "We're blown away literally every week."

Kash Patel 49:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:10 "Every week, there's some new breakthrough that we're like, 'Wow.'" We didn't expect that.

Kash Patel 49:14 Well, I can tell you, after having looked at it, this ain't gonna be AI. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:18 You don't think so?

Kash Patel 49:19 You're gonna... (laughs) It's, it's just not great. You know, it's like, if it were AI, like someone wanted to come in and make it, they'd make it better.

Joe Rogan 49:26 But why would you make it better when people could, you know, you could have ambiguous-... footage that is, you know, totally generated by AI.

Kash Patel 49:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:34 I mean, AI can generate blurry images. AI can generate-

Kash Patel 49:37 Sure.

Joe Rogan 49:37 ... night vision. AI can generate e- essentially anything that's already existed.

Kash Patel 49:42 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 49:42 Like, really shitty 1984 VHS tapes.

Kash Patel 49:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:45 They can do that.

Kash Patel 49:46 They can. But I'm telling you, I'm giving you the tape from the tape. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:50 Mm-hmm.

Kash Patel 49:51 You know, there's... Just like I'm giving you the documents from the vault, just like I'm giving you information to Congress on COVID origins or what have you. What we find is what you're getting.

Joe Rogan 50:01 Okay, so now it's saying 2019, missing jail video from the first Jeffrey Epstein suici- so for the first attempt, has been found. So, maybe, let's put it into perspective, jails are not the most efficient, best-run places.

Kash Patel 50:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:17 It's not like...

Kash Patel 50:19 Fort Knox?

Joe Rogan 50:20 Yeah. It's-

Kash Patel 50:21 No, it's not.

Joe Rogan 50:22 It's... Yeah.

Kash Patel 50:23 You know? We're working with what we got.

Joe Rogan 50:25 Right.

Kash Patel 50:25 So... And, listen, this guy's not the only guy to kill himself in prison. It happens I don't know how often.

Joe Rogan 50:31 Right.

Kash Patel 50:31 All the time.

Joe Rogan 50:33 Even if he killed himself in prison. So, if he, i- if he was murdered in prison, crazy, right?

Kash Patel 50:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:38 You could see why very powerful people wouldn't want him talking.

Kash Patel 50:41 If he was murdered in segregated housing, in isolation, after being on suicide watch in a place in a detention center that I've physically been in myself, it would be fiction. It's just, in, in my experience, that is not doable.

Joe Rogan 50:58 It's not doable, even for the most powerful-

Kash Patel 51:00 No.

Joe Rogan 51:00 ... and wealthiest people in the world?

Kash Patel 51:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:03 Wouldn't you think, though, that, like, if, if someone was in a position where a guy could release information that could potentially damage the most wealthy people on Earth, you would have a concerted effort that's unprecedented?

Kash Patel 51:17 Sure.

Joe Rogan 51:18 You'd have the resources that we couldn't even possibly comprehend, all pointing towards eliminating this one person, that it could be done.

Kash Patel 51:27 But, I'll, I mean, so many people have been implicated, right, already. And some of that informat- what uh, they did to Prince Andrew and everybody else is already out there. And so, that's the conspiracy stuff that me and Bongiorno and the folks have to say, "Look, we will give you everything we can, and then we will have done our job." Also, if I had a shred, me, Kash Patel, had a shred of evidence, the Russiagate guy, the Jan 6th guy, the COVID origins guy, had a shred of evidence that this guy was murdered, I would be the first guy to bring this case hard and fast. And I would do, even doing press conferences every week on it.

Joe Rogan 52:05 Mm-hmm.

Kash Patel 52:06 The first guy. That's what I'm asking people to play out to their logical conclusion. I'm not Comey, I'm not McCabe, I'm not the guy that was in the seat before. I have a wildly different background. I've been putting out the truth my entire career. Why (laughs) would I risk all of it on this guy?

Joe Rogan 52:23 I believe you. Can you pass the lighter?

Kash Patel 52:25 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:25 I b- I believe you. I just think that, you know, the problem is, we've been f- fuming on this-

Kash Patel 52:31 Sure.

Joe Rogan 52:31 ... conspiracy for so long.

Kash Patel 52:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:33 And it... We love conspiracies, don't we?

Kash Patel 52:35 No, it's good.

Joe Rogan 52:35 As a country? They're so much fun.

Kash Patel 52:37 It's good, right? I mean, you know, they make it easy.

Joe Rogan 52:37 JFK tapes, come on. Th- like, release the documents. We all love them. We love them.

Kash Patel 52:42 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:42 We love UFO ones, we love everything. We love the craziest conspiracies. They're exciting. We don't want to hear-

Kash Patel 52:48 They're a thing.

Joe Rogan 52:48 ... that he tried to kill himself in July and then succeeded in August. And, uh, look, I could imagine why the guy wanted to kill himself. He was going to jail for the rest of his fucking life. And in jail, sex offenders for children are not treated well.

Kash Patel 53:02 Hey and also, by the way, most Americans haven't, nor should they. Have you ever spent one minute in segregated housing?

Joe Rogan 53:08 No.

Kash Patel 53:09 It's the worst. The absolute worst. Like, you and your background, you could probably handle it, right? Like, you know, just in r- all reality. Most Americans, you put them in there for five seconds, they're gonna slam their head against the wall. Literally.

Joe Rogan 53:23 Yeah.

Kash Patel 53:23 They're gonna lose their mind.

Joe Rogan 53:24 Yeah.

Kash Patel 53:25 Immediately.

Joe Rogan 53:25 Yeah.

Kash Patel 53:26 It's that bad.

Joe Rogan 53:27 I'm sure. I can only imagine. And I could only imagine this guy knowing that it's over, and what do you want to do? Do you want to-

Kash Patel 53:34 Yeah, and then-

Joe Rogan 53:35 I mean, who knows who the fuck he's working for? Let's just put that aside. Now, if you're working for s- let's just... We don't have to name names.

Kash Patel 53:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:44 We don't have, we, we don't have to speculate. If he's working for some agency, some group, some foreign group, and they decide to target his family, because he... Look, he's going to jail for the rest of his life anyway.

Kash Patel 53:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:57 They decide to target his family-

Kash Patel 53:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:59 ... if he testifies against them, I could see where I, if I thought that it was, like, "I'm gonna be in jail for the rest of my life," or I tell, and my family winds up being killed-

Kash Patel 54:11 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 54:11 ... or, or destroyed-

Kash Patel 54:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:12 ... or who knows? Maybe you'd say, "Look, the honorable thing is to end it in prison."

Kash Patel 54:17 Honorable, cowardly thing.

Joe Rogan 54:19 Cowardly.

Kash Patel 54:19 Whatever it is.

Joe Rogan 54:20 Whatever it is. Like-

Kash Patel 54:20 N- also-

Joe Rogan 54:20 ... you just decide.

Kash Patel 54:21 ... at some point, that guy was going back into gen pop, and the one thing I'll tell you about prison systems is the, the people they eat are child predators.

Joe Rogan 54:28 Yes. Well-known.

Kash Patel 54:30 And he was gonna get eaten.

Joe Rogan 54:31 Well-known, yeah. And they probably wouldn't have protected him. Yeah. Um, so, the narrative has always been that there's video.

Kash Patel 54:40 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 54:41 Now, what is the chain of custody? Do... Is there evidence that there is video? Is there e- evidence that it was moved around, stored, protected from people looking at it? Like...

Kash Patel 54:53 You're gonna get all that information. Like, that's literally what we're putting together. And we're gonna give you every single thing we have and can. And that's the whole point. We can't fill gaps by making stuff up, and we're not gonna do that.

Joe Rogan 55:08 And you have to be methodical.

Kash Patel 55:09 And we have to be m- that's the other thing, right? We're reviewing not just the video, we're reviewing eve- you know, everything, as meticulously as we can, because that's what we owe the American people. That's our job. And we don't want to rush to the sticks or the podium and just say, "Hey, look what we found."

Joe Rogan 55:27 Right.

Kash Patel 55:27 And then be like, "Oh, sorry, I, I forgot the four seconds." You know, if we miss four seconds, they'll be like, "Oh, well."... it's in the four seconds you missed.

Joe Rogan 55:35 Right.

Kash Patel 55:35 So, I, I, I'm, I'm pretty confident-

Joe Rogan 55:37 How much can you talk about what you've seen?

Kash Patel 55:39 Not yet. Um, just, just what I've told you so.

Joe Rogan 55:42 Can you say you've seen anything?

Kash Patel 55:44 Se- no, that's the point. That there's nothing in there. (laughs) Like, in the video. You, you guys would be bored.

Joe Rogan 55:51 You talking about the video of the murder?

Kash Patel 55:53 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:53 Or the, the suicide.

Kash Patel 55:54 Yeah, the suicide.

Joe Rogan 55:54 But what about the video of, from the island?

Kash Patel 55:57 Oh, that's diff- ... Sorry. So, you're talking about Taterver?

Joe Rogan 55:59 Yes.

Kash Patel 55:59 So-

Joe Rogan 56:00 Sorry.

Kash Patel 56:00 So yeah, so again, we're gonna give you everything we can. And people have to remember, we're not gonna re-victimize women. We're not gonna put that shit back out there. It's not happening, 'cause then he wins. Not doing it. You wanna hate me for it? Fine. Again, logical playout. If there was a video of some guy, or gal, committing felonies on an island, and I'm in charge, don't you think you'd see it?

Joe Rogan 56:30 If you have access to it.

Kash Patel 56:32 If I have it. Period.

Joe Rogan 56:33 Right.

Kash Patel 56:33 If I have it. If I have it.

Joe Rogan 56:36 So-

Kash Patel 56:37 Where else would it be?

Joe Rogan 56:39 Right. If you have it.

Kash Patel 56:41 Right.

Joe Rogan 56:41 But you can't say that you have it.

Kash Patel 56:44 No, we're giving you everything we have.

Joe Rogan 56:46 So far.

Kash Patel 56:47 Everything we have so far is the un- universe.

Joe Rogan 56:48 Have you guys gone over all the video that's available?

Kash Patel 56:52 Yeah. That's what I'm telling you. That's what takes so much damn time.

Joe Rogan 56:54 Right.

Kash Patel 56:55 And-

Joe Rogan 56:56 And is there video from the island?

Kash Patel 56:59 Not of what you want. The c- the people out there have filled the void with, "Can't wait to see X, Y, or Z."

Joe Rogan 57:08 Right, speculation.

Kash Patel 57:09 And I'm like ... Here's the other thing I've been asking for, right? Openly. If you have information on this, call us. Tell us. The best resource we have is the American people and the world.

Joe Rogan 57:20 Right.

Kash Patel 57:20 Get me the tail numbers, get me the flight ... you know, get me new information, and I will run that down.

Joe Rogan 57:26 So, this narrative might not be accurate, that there's video of these guys doing this?

Kash Patel 57:31 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 57:32 Is it possible that the video was taken and destroyed?

Kash Patel 57:37 Well, you're talking about, what, decade's worth of stuff, right? Remember, we have what we have pursuant to lawful, uh, search warrants and authorities from the case. That was done t- uh, however many years ago it was done. That's what we have. If other people have other stuff, and they wanna give it to us, bring it.

Joe Rogan 57:56 Have you guys reviewed everything that you have?

Kash Patel 57:58 Almost. Like, we're ... that's th- ... I mean, yes, we have, and now we're figuring out how to-

Joe Rogan 58:04 Right.

Kash Patel 58:05 ... put it out.

Joe Rogan 58:06 Now, I understand that you would never re-victimize these women-

Kash Patel 58:10 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:11 ... and show this footage. But is there footage?

Kash Patel 58:16 Outside of ... The only thing I can say right now is if there was ev- if there was footage of anyone doing anything else, we would've opened a case.

Joe Rogan 58:28 Is it possible that there was footage that you just will never have access to because they've already-

Kash Patel 58:32 Well-

Joe Rogan 58:33 ... gotten rid of it?

Kash Patel 58:33 I mean, anything's possible, right?

Joe Rogan 58:34 Well, there was a long time, right? Between-

Kash Patel 58:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:36 ... the time when it was clear that Kamala lost the election and that Trump won.

Kash Patel 58:41 Yeah. I mean, I got here-

Joe Rogan 58:42 Before he got into office.

Kash Patel 58:43 I got here 100 days ago, (laughs) literally.

Joe Rogan 58:45 Right, exactly.

Kash Patel 58:46 So-

Joe Rogan 58:46 It's just kinda crazy.

Kash Patel 58:46 You know? So I'm, I'm doing what I can. And, and that's this type of stuff. Like, you know ... And I'm happy to, to talk about it and bring it up, but what I, what I'm trying to achieve at the Bureau is not only are we doing what's of public interest-

Joe Rogan 59:01 Mm-hmm.

Kash Patel 59:01 ... what's of great public interest. Our biggest job, our biggest job, is to defend the homeland and stop kids from dying. That's my ... Well, that's my biggest job, and that's what I'm focused on. And I think we can do all those things, and we're doing 'em really well. And I think if you give us just, like, another 100 days, it's not a lot of time. I've been ... Literally, I just hit my 100-day mark, like, two days ago.

Joe Rogan 59:23 Right.

Kash Patel 59:24 Um, you're gonna see a ton of stuff. You're already seeing it. We j- we just hit the, we just rolled out the Catholic memo, the truth about that.

Joe Rogan 59:31 What is that?

Kash Patel 59:32 Um, the last administration, the FBI wrote a memo targeting Catholics. Remember the Richmond Catholic memo? Um-

Joe Rogan 59:41 I don't remember that.

Kash Patel 59:41 Okay, so basically, they, uh, there was a write-up from the FBI relying on the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is like the modern-day Fusion GPS, um, and basically said Catholics should be targeted as domestic terrorists. Yeah. So then Chris Wray, the former FBI Director, went to Capitol Hill and testified about it. And the Congress was like, "Wait a second. Is this real? Is it predicated on actual fact? And how, how wide is it? Is it one office? Is it all these people across the country? Are Catholics being targeted as domestic terrorists?" And what ended up happening was Wray said, "Oh, it's just one office, one memo. Nothing to see here." Well, what we just roll out, again, to Congress this week, to Chuck Grassley, who put it out, was that, in fact, it was multiple offices, multiple memos that were weaponizing law enforcement to target a religious group during an election cycle, and we proved it. And now everybody has read it. B-

Joe Rogan 1:00:45 Why, why were they targeting the Catholics?

Kash Patel 1:00:47 I don't know. You'd have to ask the people that got it here before I did.

Joe Rogan 1:00:50 Did you have any suspicion of what kind of motivation they would have to, to do that?

Kash Patel 1:00:56 I think when you use ... It goes back to Russiagate. If you're willing to use Mickey Mouse journalism, if you're willing to use the Fusion GPSes and Christopher Steeles of the world, like the leadership at the FBI then did, then it has a chance to replicate itself. And that's what happened. I don't know if you know anything about the Southern Poverty Law Center, but it's-

Joe Rogan 1:01:13 Yeah.

Kash Patel 1:01:13 They literally are the ones that sent information to the FBI, and the FBI said, "Oh, we'll write a memo." And so, that's the type of work that I think gives credibility back to the Bureau, us exposing it, us giving Congress the truth. Congress coming back in and saying, "Hey, you actually didn't give us the Heisman. You gave us the documents, we gave 'em to the American people." And if there were criminal referrals to come outta that, then let's do that. I mean, we just had a great breakthrough this week on Fauci.Um, so Senator Rand Paul, Senator Kennedy, and I hate naming names because I always forget people, are doing a great job with us on COVID origins. And, and we've got multiple investigations open on that. But they had always been looking for, um, Fauci's original phone and ... or not original, but phones and devices he used while he was Fauci back in Trumpland during COVID. And nobody had found it till two days ago.

Joe Rogan 1:02:11 Really?

Kash Patel 1:02:12 Yeah. Now look, your audience and everybody listening to this shouldn't jump to the conclusion everything's in there. We'll look at it. We'll pull it, we'll rip it, as we say. And maybe it's deleted, maybe it's not. But at least we found it, and at least now we can tell the American people we've been looking, because it is of public importance to figure out, did that guy lie? Did he intentionally mislead the world and cause countless deaths? We owe those answers to the American people. And the best evidence ever is always the people's evidence who created it. And so now we're gonna go and exploit those hard drives. But I think a victory for the American people that we broke with Congress is that we did find it. We're not done. We're still looking, and we're on the case. So whether it's Richmond Catholic memo, whether it's Fauci COVID origins, whatever becomes of rape, Russia gate, Crossfire Hurricane, whatever becomes of great public importance, that's a big part of what we do at the FBI too.

Joe Rogan 1:03:06 The Crossfire Hurricane one is bananas.

Kash Patel 1:03:08 Well, that's all Russia gate. Yeah, it's completely nuts.

Joe Rogan 1:03:11 Yeah. Yeah, it's all gay.

Kash Patel 1:03:11 I mean, you can ... We can do three days on that. I mean, I'm, that's like ... (laughs) I spent-

Joe Rogan 1:03:15 Yeah. It's bananas. I mean, it's, I mean, there's so many things in the past that you, you get it. Like, like the, uh, operation Fast and Furious.

Kash Patel 1:03:24 Yeah, the guns.

Joe Rogan 1:03:26 Insane. Which led to the death of American lives.

Kash Patel 1:03:29 Of a federal agent.

Joe Rogan 1:03:30 Yeah.

Kash Patel 1:03:30 Yeah. You, you know, and there's just things that, like, I see that you would think I would have more uproar, even as, as much time I've been doing this that don't, and things that wouldn't have, that my mind would be like, "No one's gonna pay attention," and people are like, "Oh my God." And so that's part of the learning curve for me too. You know, like trying to figure out what the balance is. You know, should I be giving this so much attention, so much resources? But then when I have to call a parent because their kid's dead from fentanyl, or when I have to call a cop's family, and I call every single line of duty death that we have in this country. I call everyone's chief and I call their families. And I'm glad that the numbers are going down in terms of how many have been killed this year versus last year.

Joe Rogan 1:04:10 How much have the numbers gone down?

Kash Patel 1:04:13 Um, by over 15% so far. But I want to be at zero.

Joe Rogan 1:04:19 Right.

Kash Patel 1:04:19 You know, that's where my focus needs to be.

Joe Rogan 1:04:21 15% in 100 days is-

Kash Patel 1:04:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:22 ... still-

Kash Patel 1:04:23 You know.

Joe Rogan 1:04:24 ... pretty good.

Kash Patel 1:04:24 Give or take a couple points.

Joe Rogan 1:04:25 Yeah.

Kash Patel 1:04:26 Um, and that's where my focus, that's where the FBI's focus needs to be. I, these guys are on the line. We're doing all these raids across the country in Homeland Security Task Force. We're, we just hit a 10,000 mark. We just ar- we just arrested over 10,000 people in the 100 and change days that we've been doing this with DHS. Huge, right? On illegals and, and whatnot. We also just, like, this is great. This, this piece of information has actually made me happy. We are on track to have the lowest homicide rate ever. Murder rate, excuse me. Murder rate ever.

Joe Rogan 1:05:03 In the country?

Kash Patel 1:05:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:05 Really?

Kash Patel 1:05:06 We're already ... And look, we got six more months to go, so we're not done yet for the year, but we're already down 20% from last year, and we broke it this week that right now, the murder rate, if we, the FBI and our government partners achieve the mission, we'll give the American people the lowest murder rate in decades.

Joe Rogan 1:05:23 That's incredible.

Kash Patel 1:05:24 And that's what I'm focused on.

Joe Rogan 1:05:26 So, uh, what, what steps have been made to do that? Like what, how did that become real?

Kash Patel 1:05:34 So I think, and I, and I've worked with cops and law enforcement a lot in the past, and you have too. They're, they're awesome. They, all they wanted to do was do the work. Once President Trump got elected and before I even got the nomination, right? And excuse me, when I was traveling country with, with him before, before that, they were like, "Take the handcuffs off, off of us. Let us go do our jobs." And that's where I came up with, like, good cops, be cops. I said, "If I'm gonna get this job, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna let you, the agents, the police officers, the sheriffs go out there and do the work you so badly want to do, and I'm gonna give you the resources you need to do it. And I'm gonna take away the politicization and weaponization saying, 'Oh, we can't target this group or this thing or this area.'" And that's it. That's what we've done. Everywhere I go, I, I speak to cops across this country constantly, and it's a humbling message that I receive back every time I talk to them. They are like ... And it's not me, it's the president's administration and our entire government that's doing it. They're like, "Thank you for letting us do the work." We want to chase child predators. We want to bust up MS-13. I mean, look at the victories we've had for the American people. In the first two months, the FBI arrested three, not one, not two, but three of the world's most top 10 wanted fugitives. Three. One of them happened to be the guy that was the Abbey Gate bomber.

Joe Rogan 1:06:59 What was the Abbey Gate bomber?

Kash Patel 1:07:01 The, um, terrorist that blew up 13 US soldiers in the Afghan withdrawal.

Joe Rogan 1:07:06 Oh.

Kash Patel 1:07:08 I did it with my inter-agency partners in a week. In a week, we found that guy, went to Pakistan, brought him back here. Now, there's others responsible for it, and we're, we're chasing them down too. But the question the American people should be asking is, why didn't the prior administration, putting aside the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, a plan that they completely politicized. We handed off them a proper way to do it and methodical way to do it, and they just said, "FU, we're doing it this way." And you saw the videos and you saw people-

Joe Rogan 1:07:38 Yeah.

Kash Patel 1:07:38 ... plunging from our, from our aircrafts, and you saw Abbey Gate.... and 13 Americans dead. Why didn't anyone go get justice for those families? Well, that's the priority that the president said. "We're gonna go find him." And we let good cops be cops, we let federal agents be agents, we let our intel community focus intelligence collection on terrorists, and we went and got that guy.

Joe Rogan 1:08:01 It's so hard to believe that it's really that simple, that it's just they weren't given the resources and they weren't given the support-

Kash Patel 1:08:07 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 1:08:07 ... to let cops be cops, and that they could have done this all along.

Kash Patel 1:08:10 I don't know if that's the only answer. I'm just telling you what I'm doing, and I think we're seeing some results.

Joe Rogan 1:08:15 I appreciate that, but, uh, uh, as a person, again, who loves conspiracies-

Kash Patel 1:08:18 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:08:19 You know, you look at that and you're like, "What would be the benefit of not letting cops be cops?" Why would you want more crime? Why would you want more murders? Why would you not want to arrest bad guys?

Kash Patel 1:08:29 Well, you have to look at the landscape of the last, I don't know, four, eight, 12 years, call it, right? (clears throat) It was an intentional decision, and this isn't politics, it was just an intentional decision to say, "We're gonna let all these people into our country and let them stay." The result of that is... You know, this is another part of the lift that we're doing at the Bureau. We call them KSTs, known or suspected terrorists. They get, uh, pinged at the border, the northern border and the southern border, and then the last administration said, "You guys can come in." And then one of the most terrifying things I heard was, my predecessor, Christopher Wray, went to Congress a year or two ago and said, "Well, the last year's annual statistics for known KSTs was, um, a few dozen, and we don't know where they are in America." "What do you mean you don't know where they are? How is that not a national security crisis?" And so what we're doing while we're doing these raids and chasing down illegals is trying to target those with terrorist affiliations, those who are terrorists, those who are in our homeland, because the last administration let them be here. And that's... You can say I'm being political, I don't really care, but that's me being the FBI director and saying, "Americans come first," and we're protecting our own, and we're chasing them down. And DHS is doing a great job, and, and so is our intelligence community, and so are the local police, uh, departments who are now working with us and not living in sanctuary cities and allowing police stations to be burnt to the ground. Working with us and not having law enforcement attacked constantly for just doing the job of protecting the American people. I think that's a tectonic shift in the mentality of what this administration has brought in. Now, people are still vilifying us for doing that. "How dare you separate families?" they'll say, and I'm like, "How dare you separate a mom from a kid on a fentanyl overdose? How dare you separate an American soldier's mom or dad from the guy that got blown up at Abbey Gate?" I have different priorities. I have a different view of it. And so that's the ethos I'm bringing to the Bureau.

Joe Rogan 1:10:44 I appreciate everything you guys are doing. I just, I, I'm baffled to try to come up with any kind of an explanation why anybody would let known or suspected terrorists-

Kash Patel 1:10:53 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:10:53 ... into the country and just let them loose. I mean, it, when, when you... I mean, I know you can't speculate, but when you take office and you realize all this is going on, like what, what is going through your mind? Like, how are you processing this? Like, is this pure incompetence? Is this malice? Is this, is this a foolhardy adherence to ideology and just completely ignore the danger that they're putting the American people in by doing this?

Kash Patel 1:11:23 (sighs) It's... I think it... No, it's intentional. The intentional decision was (clears throat) when you're going to let in, what is it, nine million people? (clears throat) A lot of them are going to be criminals. A lot of them are going to be TDA. You saw what they did in Colorado. A lot of them are gonna be MS-13. A lot of them are gonna be narco-traffickers, which when you ent- when you allow narco-traffickers in the country, you're automatically bringing sex trades trafficking, human trafficking, and drug trafficking, automatically. And the drug traffickers have partnered with the terrorist organizations and our adversaries. We haven't even talked about Russia and the CCP and how they've combined forces over the last however many years to infiltrate America, not just with people, but our cyber capabilities and our infrastructure. And so when I come into a job like this (clears throat) , patience is one of the hardest things you have to manage, because you can't fix everything overnight. You have to build up the workforce, you have to get them the resources, you have to fix the infrastructure that's broken. I mean, I'll just give you a quick example. The building that the FBI ha- calls headquarters, the Hoover Building, is like 70 years old. I literally have netting, mesh netting, holding up the side of the building because pieces of concrete fall off of it-

Joe Rogan 1:12:36 (laughs)

Kash Patel 1:12:36 ... so it doesn't hit people in the head.

Joe Rogan 1:12:38 (laughs)

Kash Patel 1:12:38 I'm not kidding. I'm dead serious.

Joe Rogan 1:12:41 (laughs)

Kash Patel 1:12:41 So I said, "How about we give the workforce a safe place to work?" So we're moving out of there. And people think it's a political decision, "Oh, Kash Patel's taking the FBI out of the historic Hoover Building." Yeah, 'cause I don't want people to die, and I think they deserve a better workplace than something that's 70 years old that has pipes exploding literally every single week, every week. And also, we're gonna save the taxpayer money. We're gonna get out of a building that would cost billions to fix, and we're gonna move into a location that's already built instead of a 15-year government boondoggle, an hour outside of DC, and we're gonna stay in DC, we're gonna stay near our partners in government. And we're gonna put out the workforce and spread them out across the country, like I talked to you about earlier, and put more agents on the streets, and put more agents in Indian country, and put more agents in your communities as intel analysts to figure out where the crime is. But that, all of that takes time. I can't do it overnight, but-

Joe Rogan 1:13:34 Why do you say Indian country? Like what, what about-

Kash Patel 1:13:36 Tribal lands.

Joe Rogan 1:13:37 But what about tribal lands is problematic?

Kash Patel 1:13:39 Oh, man. So this... You're, uh... Thank you so much for bringing this up. It's one of my biggest priorities. So the, the tribal... And I just met with, um-... almost all of the- the- the chiefs and the leaders of the tribal communities in America. (clears throat) The crimes they have committed on- on- on what we call Indian country is just as horrific, if not worse, than the rest of America. Look up the story about Emily Pike, whose family is still waiting for her arms. This child was murdered on a reservation, and they found a piece of her body, and not the murderer, and not the rest of her body. They are plagued by drugs, and they have never been a priority, um, in terms of law enforcement working together. And- and now remember, you're talking about two different sets of legal, uh, structures, right? They have-

Joe Rogan 1:14:29 Right.

Kash Patel 1:14:29 ... their own and we have our own. But what I've asked of them, and what they've asked of me is, "Pay more attention, give us more resources." And what I've asked of them is said, "Hey," all the leaders said, "Let my guys on. Let my guys come to you, and let's work together on solving some of these horrific, horrific crimes." The tr- the trafficking, the murders, and the violent crime on Indian reservations is- is skyrocketing. And I'm not going to treat people who live in the United States of America differently because they have a different way of life. We're gonna help them. And we put out Operation Not Forgotten where we re- we deployed, this- this month and this summer, um, I can't remember how many agents and intel analysts, specifically to remote tribal locations to solve crimes that have not been solved for years, specifically the most violent, and we're gonna double down on that. And as Bongino likes to say, "This summer, we are unleashing a massive operation across the country." Um, as Dan calls it, it's a, uh, it's a bad day to be a bad guy this summer, because the FBI is putting out all these extra agents and personnel into the field, and we're gonna come find you. If you think you can nest in our communities and- and find safe haven, you're going to prison.

Joe Rogan 1:15:42 That's great to hear. So when- w- what is the- when you guys sit around, you think about the motivation to let all these people into the country-

Kash Patel 1:15:53 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:15:53 I mean, again, you- you kind- you're kind of speculating, but why do you think they allowed it? Why do you think they allowed the border to be wide open like that?

Kash Patel 1:16:01 You know, in my job now, that's, like, one of those political decisions, and so I try to stay out of that. Uh-

Joe Rogan 1:16:06 But how is that political to leave the border, like, to-

Kash Patel 1:16:10 I don't- I-

Joe Rogan 1:16:10 How is a national security issue political?

Kash Patel 1:16:12 So that's just it. From my perspective, it's a national security decision, and they failed on the national security mission. But I think where the decision from that administration to do that was a political one. That's what I'm trying to sort of separate. I've always viewed it singularly, protecting the border, preventing drugs from coming in, preventing terrorists-

Joe Rogan 1:16:33 Right.

Kash Patel 1:16:34 ... from coming in, preventing people from-

Joe Rogan 1:16:35 But what- what political decision could be made that makes any sense at all to not do that?

Kash Patel 1:16:40 I don't think there is one, but unfortunately, they did it anyway.

Joe Rogan 1:16:44 Do you think it was just that Biden was just not there, and everyone else that was really running things was completely incompetent, was focused on other things, was focused on maybe the optics of border protection, that it, you know, that somehow or another, there was some negative connotation to it politically?

Kash Patel 1:17:05 I don't... I think it's- I always say this. I think it's dismissive to say those people were incompetent. They're super smart. They're not dumb. And whether or not Biden was running things or whatever, conversation for other people to- to have,