{"id":29254,"date":"2026-01-07T04:24:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T04:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=29254"},"modified":"2026-01-07T04:24:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T04:24:23","slug":"trump-stops-meeting-cold-to-brush-off-rumor-about-kash-patel-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=29254","title":{"rendered":"Trump Stops Meeting Cold to Brush Off Rumor About Kash Patel"},"content":{"rendered":"

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President Donald Trump \u201claughed\u201d at a \u201ctotally false\u201d MS NOW report that he was considering firing FBI Director Kash Patel, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday. Leavitt, in a post on X, said the story was \u201ccompletely made up.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nShe said she was in the Oval Office with both Trump and Patel when the report was published on Tuesday, prompting Trump to take a quick picture standing alongside the FBI director. Leavitt posted the photo, with both men smiling and giving Trump\u2019s trademark thumbs-up gesture.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat? That\u2019s totally false. Come on, Kash, let\u2019s take a picture to show them you\u2019re doing a great job!\u201d Trump said, according to Leavitt.<\/p>\n

The White House response came an hour after MS NOW reported Trump was \u201cconsidering removing Kash Patel as FBI director in the coming months, as he and his top aides have grown increasingly frustrated by the unflattering headlines Patel has recently generated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The MS NOW report cited \u201cthree people with knowledge of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nOne of the authors of the story, justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian, stood by the reporting during an appearance on MS NOW following Leavitt\u2019s post.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI said in the last hour that we may have enhanced Kash Patel\u2019s job security by reporting this story. And that seems to be playing out. But there\u2019s another factor. I also got some texts from FBI sources after the story was published, saying you\u2019re spot on\u2026 it\u2019s anybody\u2019s guess how this is all going to play out, but it is absolutely our reporting that, of course, Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche, but also the White House and Donald Trump have grown annoyed with the bad press that Patel has been racking up,\u201d Dilanian said.<\/p>\n

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\nOne headline Trump disliked, according to MS NOW\u2019s initial report, was a story claiming Patel used a government jet to watch his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, perform.<\/p>\n

Patel called that report \u201cfake news\u201d earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Dilanian, during an earlier appearance Tuesday with anchor Katy Tur, laid out what MS NOW says it has been told by its sources.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Katy, I should say, first of all, all the qualifiers apply here. With Donald Trump and personnel decisions, you never actually know exactly what\u2019s going on. But we are being told that Kash Patel, the FBI director, is on increasingly thin ice, and the president is considering replacing him by the end of the year with Andrew Bailey, the former attorney general of Missouri, who is acting now as co-deputy FBI director along with Dan Bongino,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dilanian added that Trump was upset by \u201cpremature tweets\u201d Patel sent related to the investigation into the murder of Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n

In October, Patel announced that the bureau is \u201cfollowing the money\u201d behind Antifa and other far-left militant groups, launching an unprecedented financial investigation aimed at dismantling every donor network, funding mechanism, and organizational link supporting domestic extremism.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are following the money. Money never lies,\u201d Patel said during a briefing alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what it\u2019s going to take to bring down this network of organized criminal thugs, gang bangers, and yes, domestic terrorists \u2014 because that\u2019s what they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patel said the FBI is working closely with the Treasury Department to map out the web of accounts and entities used to finance Antifa\u2019s operations across the United States and abroad.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not rest until we uncover every single source of funding, donor, organization, and financial support that exists,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

According to Patel, the effort will span every major city in the country. \u201cThey will not be able to hide. They were able to hide and conspire with prior administrations, and we are exposing their corruption from within,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump \u201claughed\u201d at a \u201ctotally false\u201d MS NOW report that he was considering firing FBI Director Kash Patel, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday. Leavitt, … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29256,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29254\/revisions\/29256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}