Mark Fisher
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
I'm willing to give Kash Patel the benefit of the doubt and believe that he's a genuine fan of UFC.
He seems to really enjoy it when he goes to the bouts.
He went with Mel Gibson to that Vegas fight.
And so Kash Patel's true sports love is ice hockey.
He plays ice hockey.
He is a huge fan.
He's used a government jet to fly to an Islanders game up in New York.
So when it comes to the UFC, I think we have a happy coincidence where Trump's love for that sport and Patel's dovetail nicely.
They both have a strong desire to appeal to a core part of the MAGA constituency, the hyper-masculine world of MMA.
And so there is a political aspect to this.
But in general, I think they both also just love that scene.
I can't quite capture for you just how humiliated and upset many FBI agents are by what they see as a belittling of their serious training, their serious academic background.
This is an agency where...
A lot of the FBI agents, while you might see them in TV dramas as essentially street cops in suits, this is an agency where many of them are lawyers.
Many of them have advanced degrees.
These are people deeply schooled in the technology necessary to combat cybercrime today.
And so when they see that their own director is talking about making them have training sessions with MMA fighters, they see this as belittling and insulting.
There are some ways in which many FBI agents like the fact that Patel has steered the agency back toward what they see as
basic crime fighting.
But the overwhelming sentiment, I think, is that he has more than shaken up the Bureau.