FB-OY….

Kash Patel is scrambling to make himself look like the hero of the Charlie Kirk murder probe. It’s not working — to the point where his job is now in question.

• FBI Director Kash Patel just can’t catch a break. Try as he might to claim credit for busting the alleged shooter of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, nobody’s buying it. That includes Patel’s friends at Fox News and, more dangerously for Patel, top officials in the White House and Department of Justice. People close to President Donald Trump are anonymously bashing Patel for bungling the Kirk investigation… to the point where some are suggesting he’ll soon be out of his current job.

• “The White House, Bondi, Blanche have no confidence in Kash,” Fox News reported last night, referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche — i.e., Patel’s bosses. For any top Trump official, it’s a very bad sign when Fox News puts out a hit piece on you!

• Patel went on “Fox and Friends,” one of President Donald Trump’s favorite shows, to fight back. He insisted he has no regrets for wrongly tweeting that the "subject for the horrific shooting… is now in custody,” a post he reportedly made around the time he ate a fancy meal at New York’s Rao’s restaurant… and then had to embarrassingly walk back. Patel called that public transparency. Everyone else calls it spreading misinformation.

• Patel also crowed on “Fox and Friends” about how his agents found a screwdriver and a towel that may be tied to the suspect… also known as, “basic police work.” He has boasted about overruling advice to not release high-resolution images of the shooter, but hasn’t clarified who urged him against such a commonsense, standard procedure.

• The White House claims it still backs Patel. But its actions suggest otherwise. Today, Patel’s new “co-deputy” FBI Director starts his job… and it’s a guy with much more real-world law enforcement experience than Patel, former Missouri AG Andrew Bailey.

• In other words: Patel is getting a babysitter. The move to install a second FBI Deputy Director is totally unprecedented, and suggests a lack of faith in Patel and his current deputy, former podcaster Dan Bongino. Officials are already whispering that Bailey is being positioned as Patel’s replacement.

This is only the latest White House disappointment with Patel, according to Fox.

• Trump was upset over Patel’s public clash with Bondi over the release of the Epstein files… a fight that made Trump’s ongoing Epstein coverup more difficult. Trump famously likes his officials to look like they came from “central casting.” But this week, in the spotlight, Patel maintained a deer-in-the-headlights stare. Patel’s bizarre vow to meet Kirk in “Valhalla,” the afterlife for Norse warriors, left both the right and left wondering: WTF was that?

• Bailey is now on equal footing with Bongino, who has acknowledged being very stressed out by his new big-boy job. Federal rules say Bailey would be eligible to take the FBI helm after 90 days. Patel will have more time to defend himself in front of the nation and in front of Trump, aka his “audience of one,” when he testifies Tuesday morning in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

• What’s in Patel’s future? "He’ll get Billy Long-ed," one source told Fox, referring to Trump’s former IRS commissioner, who’s now set to become U.S. Ambassador to Iceland.

Will Patel be shipped off to some other Nordic country? Norway, perhaps? Is that what he was trying to tell us with that crack about “Valhalla”?

WHAT ELSE?

Trump announced the U.S. killed three people in a strike on a second Venezuelan boat he said was carrying drugs in international waters in the Caribbean. Legal experts have argued Trump has no legal authority to order such lethal strikes on what the law treats as criminal suspects.

Top Trump Administration officials warned that they’re preparing to use Charlie Kirk’s murder as a pretext to crack down on left-leaning NGO’s and non-profits, a classic authoritarian tactic from places like Russia and Hungary. Vice President JD Vance hosted Kirk’s podcast from the White House today, and used the moment to call groups like the Ford Foundation “terrorist sympathizers.” Trump advisor Stephen Miller promised an “organized campaign’ to “dismantle these terrorist networks,” otherwise known as MAGA’s political opposition.

Donald Trump and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, made millions off of a $2 billion Emirati investment in their crypto exchange company that was inked alongside an agreement to supply the United Arab Emirates with American A.I. chips, according to a New York Times investigation. Nothing like impeachment-level news way below the fold!

The United States apologized to South Korea over the mass arrest and detention of hundreds of Korean workers at a battery plant construction site in Georgia. The raid enraged Koreans and threatened ties between the two countries. Donald Trump, who did not apologize, said the workers will be “welcome” when they reenter the U.S. So first they’re arrested and kicked out of the country, then they’re welcome? Got it.

Federal prosecutor Maurene Comey sued the Trump Administration for firing her this summer. Comey, who handled cases involving Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Sean “Diddy” Combs, says she was fired because of Trump’s hatred for her father, former FBI director James Comey. But, no, we’re sure the Trump administration had some very normal, extremely boring, perfectly reasonable explanation. Y’know, like they always do.

Light at the End of the Email…

New Mexico is slated to become the first state to offer universal child care, under a plan put in motion by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

Japan extended its decades-old record for the most people over 100. Stay golden, Japan!

Atlanta’s National Center for Civil and Human Rights museum is expanding, even while Donald Trump cracks down on the Smithsonian to fit his personal take on American race relations.

Wanna see the Muppets’ Swedish Chef perform The Sugarhill Gang’s 1979 classic, “Rapper’s Delight”? Sure you do. And you deserve it. Sound up!