WHAT THE FBI?

Kash Patel is catching heat from both the right and the left over his bungled response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination — and reinforcing concerns about his role as FBI chief.

• Few issues are uniting MAGAworld with the left this week like their shared sense of frustration with FBI Director Kash Patel. After a shooter killed right-wing activist Charlie Kirk yesterday, Patel tweeted that agents had the “subject for the horrific shooting” in custody. Two hours later, Patel suffered one of the most embarrassing reversals an officer of the law can endure: He had to explain that, actually, this wasn’t the right guy, he was just misinformed, and the “subject” had been released. Oopies, false alarm!

• Patel’s bafflingly wrong tweet was even worse than that. It contradicted a press conference featuring local officials who knew what they were talking about. During the event, another FBI official said the manhunt was still underway. Local authorities clarified that a “person of interest” was in custody… but stopped far short of backing Patel’s implication that the bad guy had been nabbed, and mission accomplished.

• Blowback from prominent figures on the right came fast. “Suspect still on loose. Unreal. Get him,” tweeted conservative Fox News host Laura Ingraham. The pro-MAGA self-styled “citizen journalist” Patrick Howley blasted Patel: “You have released more Charlie Kirk suspects than Epstein files. What is taking you so long?”

• “Why is the head of the @FBI speculating like everyone not in the know?…. Stop all this click bait shit,” tweeted Joe Biggs, a former leader of the far-right Proud Boys, who was sentenced to 17 years for his part in the 2021 Capitol riot before receiving a commutation from Trump. “You were a horrible pick for this position.”

The latest updates on the investigation are hardly raising confidence.

• The shooter remains at large. The FBI released blurry images of the suspect, described as a “college-age man,” and posted a $100,000 reward for information leading to identification and the arrest. The massive cash offer suggests the FBI isn’t happy with the tips it’s receiving, according to a former top FBI official.

• Adding to the confusion: Conflicting reports about a crucial, and incendiary, forensic detail. Reports circulated early Thursday suggesting officials found the rifle used by the killer along with cartridges engraved with words “expressing transgender and anti-fascist ideology.” But that information hasn’t been verified, didn’t match other summaries of the evidence, and might turn out to be a misinterpretation, an official told the New York Times.

• Patel may be a strident MAGA loyalist. But he has zero past experience running a massive law enforcement agency. His tenure so far has led to tumult and turnover, and accusations that he’s politicizing the bureau. In August, Patel pushed out at least 18 of 53 special agents in charge of offices across the country. One was Mehtab Syed, a highly respected counterterrorism expert, who oversaw Utah from the FBI’s Salt Lake City field office. The FBI offered her a lower-level job elsewhere. She retired — creating uncertainty in the office most crucial to this particular investigation.

• Thousands of FBI agents have been reassigned this year to help with immigration efforts, and the agency recently forced out Brian Driscoll, another top counterterrorism official. “Patel has dismantled and weakened all the counterterrorism aspects of the FBI, top to bottom,” one former FBI agent told What A Day.

• Driscoll and two other ousted agents are trying to ring the alarm. In a lawsuit filed this week, the agents accused Patel’s team of caring so much about creating social media content that it “could risk outweighing more deliberate analyses of investigations.”

Meanwhile, tensions are heating up around the country, most notably with a false bomb threat at the Democratic National Committee headquarters today.

WHAT ELSE?

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired his country’s ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson, after the diplomat’s close ties to deceased child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein were revealed. One unflattering example: Mandelson described Epstein as his “best pal” in the infamous birthday book recently made public. The ambassador also once suggested that Epstein’s “first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged,” according to a British embassy statement.

On that note, Bloomberg obtained a tranche of 18,000 emails from Epstein’s personal Yahoo inbox, which show that his relationship with confidante Ghislaine Maxwell was much deeper than previously known. “The pair discussed undergoing a shared fertility procedure, long after Maxwell claims she largely disassociated from him,” the outlet writes. I don’t know what that means… and I don’t wanna find out!

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “killed any hope” for a release of the hostages being held by Hamas, Qatar’s prime minister said following Israel’s attack on Qatar this week. His comment comes amid an impending Israeli operation in Gaza City, as thousands of Palestinians flee the area.

Inflation rose to 2.9 percent in August, the highest year-over-year reading since the beginning of 2025. The increase is raising fears of “stagflation,” in which a stagnating economy combines with rising prices. But, of course, these numbers are totally fake, bigly false and unfair, and concocted by the radical left and Hillary Clinton, so who cares!

Former President Joe Biden’s team is fuming over Kamala Harris’s upcoming book, which throws a few jabs their way. “Vice President Harris was simply not good at the job,” one former Biden White House official complained to Axios. “She had basically zero substantive role in any of the administration's key work streams, and instead would just dive bomb in for stilted photo ops that exposed how out of depth she was.” I wonder if these same people would keep bashing her if they weren’t allowed to hide their names…

Light at the End of the Email…

Belarus freed 52 political prisoners after the U.S. lifted sanctions on the country’s national airline. It’s great that political dissidents are free, but, of course, not-so-great that Donald Trump is cozying up to Belarus, a close ally of Russia.

The Trump administration dissolved a working group of climate contrarians who wrote a bogus report saying that climate change might actually be a good thing. That comes after more than 100 climate scientists submitted 400 pages of public comments to the Energy Department about the report. “My interpretation is they’re waving the white flag,” one of the scientists said.

Exercising even one time can create certain molecules that help slow down breast cancer, according to a new study. While more research is needed, the study adds to a growing body of research showing that exercising can help lower the risks of developing cancer — and help survive it.

Do octopuses play favorites… with their arms? Kind of, according to new research. The sea creatures aren’t left- or right handed, like us land dwellers. But they do use their front arms more often when doing activities, such as swimming and crawling. “All of the arms can do all of this stuff – that’s really amazing,” said a marine biologist who co-authored the study.