A good night for Democrats as the administration flounders

March 4, 2026

Robert B. Hubbell Mar 4

In states holding midterm primaries on Tuesday, the throughline was Democratic enthusiasm. In blue and red states alike, Democratic turnout in open and closed primaries was strong, reaching near-record levels in some states. Although Republican turnout was strong, as well, it was eclipsed by Democratic enthusiasm.

The good news at the ballot box was heightened by “candidate quality.” In North Carolina, former Governor Roy Cooper secured the Democratic nomination for Senate to succeed retiring GOP Senator Thom Tillis. Cooper has never lost an election and will face off against “a GOP oil lobbyist” at a time when lobbyists, oil, and Republicans are increasingly unpopular.

As I write, it is too early to tell which of two future stars of the Democratic Party—Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico—will win a tight race for the Democratic Senate nomination. Together, they have generated record-levels of Democratic turnout in Texas, a state with chronic low turnout. If there is a path forward, it is through candidates who can motivate reluctant voters to show up at the polls.

On the Republican side, several races in Texas have turned into “cage-match” mixed-martial-arts contests that will leave a mark on whoever wins. GOP incumbent Senator John Cornyn is in a run-off with the controversial and toxic Ken Paxton. Even Trump has had the good sense to stay away from race. When it became clear that Cornyn was forced into a runoff with Paxton, Cornyn released a statement saying, “Judgment day is coming for Ken Paxton. Republican voters will learn who Ken Paxton really is.”

MAGA firebrand Chip Roy will be in a run-off with another MAGA firebrand to replace Ken Paxton as Texas Attorney General. That race will turn on “loyalty” to Trump, pushing both contenders to the most extreme MAGA positions—not a recipe for success in blue-wave midterms where Trump is historically unpopular.

In a similar dynamic, one of MAGA’s nastiest members, Dan Crenshaw, is being challenged from the right by an even nastier challenger, who may win because of support from Trump and the Tea Party caucus. [Update: Dan Crenshaw lost to the challenger.]

The confusion in Dallas County, Texas, is inexcusable and was the result of a voter suppression change that became effective on election day. The change regarding where Dallas County voters were required to vote resulted from the refusal of Dallas County Republicans to sign an agreement allowing precinct-wide voting.

The details will matter in the litigation that will undoubtedly follow, but for now, the point is that Democrats have been forewarned that, in the 2026 midterms, same-day voting must take place in the precinct where the voter is registered to avoid challenge.

With that advance notice, we must ensure Democrats know where to vote. It will require hard work, but that burden will fall on Democrats and Republicans alike. We must work harder than Republicans to educate voters who will support Democratic candidates. We can do that.

The administration has a dumpster-fire day of contradictions, flip-flops, and incompetence

The administration experienced one of the worst days in modern presidential history. Incompetence oozed through the sizable gaps in the scotch tape and baling wire that hold the administration together. At its core, the chaos emanated from Trump, who lacks the attention-span, discipline, and intelligence to lead the administration. His stubby fingers were all over Tuesday’s chaos.

Why does this matter? Am I relating these stories just to serve a dollop of schadenfreude on top of Republican humble pie? No, the inconsistencies and incompetence are at the beating heart of Trump’s lawless policies.

If we hope to defeat his acolytes in the midterms, we must arm ourselves with the evidence of Trump’s colossal ineptitude, forcing his minions to defend every mistake, corrupt action, and crime committed by Trump.

Administration flip-flops on dropping appeal against law firms that refused to bend the knee to Trump.

Yesterday, I wrote that the Trump administration had requested a voluntary dismissal of its appeal of losses in lawsuits brought by law firms that refused to capitulate to Trump. That decision effectively amounted to a concession of illegality by the Trump administration—the correct result and a prudent exercise of judgment by the DOJ. But someone apparently forgot to tell Trump, who went ballistic and ordered the DOJ to seek to withdraw its request for voluntary dismissal.

Marc Elias sent an email that explained the reversal by the DOJ, and the blame that should be shared by the nine capitulating law firms. Elias wrote:

Having spent last night, no doubt, reviewing the slew of negative news clips indicating that Trump had given up his fight and democracy had prevailed, the Department of Justice decided to reverse course this morning. In its filing, the DOJ simply cited its “prerogative” to continue its appeal and informed the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that it would continue its legal crusade against these four law firms. [¶]

In my piece earlier today, I called out the cowardice of the nine law firms that were in a position to speak out against Trump’s executive orders, but chose to stay silent. They bear the bulk of the responsibility and shame for the situation we find ourselves in. Had they stood tall and supported the four courageous law firms that fought back, Trump would not feel as empowered to continue his crusade.

Trump will ultimately lose this fight. But it should be over—and would be over if the nine capitulating law firms, and the rest of the legal profession, had come to the aid of the firms that chose to stand up to Trump.

Trump contradicts Rubio’s claim that the US attacked Iran because Israel was going to launch an attack first.

Yesterday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the US launched a “preemptive war” against Iran because Israel had informed the US that it planned to attack Iran, which the US feared would result in strikes on US military bases in the Middle East. Today, Trump contradicted Rubio’s claim. See ABC News, Trump contradicts Rubio. (“No. I might have forced [Israel’s] hand. . . [I]t was my opinion that [Iran was] going to attack first. They were going to attack. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.”)

To be clear, Trump lies constantly, so we should not credit anything he says. The point is that it is a rarity for a president to contradict his Secretary of State. But in Trump’s out-of-control administration, there is no coordination between Trump and his cabinet members.

Was the real reason for the attack on Iran a plot to commence “Armageddon”?

You can’t make this up. Apparently, at a pre-strike briefing, an officer told non-commissioned officers that Trump was chosen by God to start a holy war against Iran that would start Armageddon (a final battle before the Second Coming of Christ). See Military.com, Commanders Accused of Framing Iran War as Biblical Mandate, Jesus’ ‘Return’.

A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to independent journalist Jonathan Larsen as published on Substack.

That complaint was made by a non-commissioned officer and provided to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which from Saturday morning through Monday evening received and logged more than 110 complaints about commanders in every branch of the military.

A word of caution: This story is based on a single source, which is generally reliable. But Snopes has rated the story “Unrated” because it relies on a single confidential source.

But the whole apocalyptic religious trope is consistent with Pete Hegseth’s radical Christian views. Indeed, Hegseth has a medieval crusader, anti-Muslim tattoo on his chest, “Deus Vult,” and is a member of a radical Christian nationalist movement that believes “God is also a god of war.” See Religion Dispatches, Not a Single Senator Probed the Most Dangerous Part of Pete Hegseth's Background: His Ties to White Christian Nationalism.

Per Religion Dispatches,

In December 2024, Jane Mayer reported in The New Yorker that a coworker at Concerned Veterans for America, one of two small nonprofits Hegseth has run, lodged a complaint against Hegseth after he and an associate began chanting “Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!” in “a drunk and a violent manner” at a bar while on official travel for a work event.

So, the notion that Hegseth and other officers believe the attack on Iran is part of a twisted plan to prepare for the Second Coming doesn’t seem far-fetched.

Lack of coordination between FBI and Pentagon on illegal war against Iran.

In a well-run administration, planning for a war against a state known for sponsoring terrorism would have included working with the FBI to prevent terror attacks on the US. But forty-eight hours before Trump launched his illegal war on Iran, FBI Director Kash Patel fired about eleven members of an elite group charged with monitoring terror threats from Iran. See CNN, Kash Patel gutted FBI counterintelligence team tasked with tracking Iranian threats days before US strikes, sources say.

Kash Patel is affirmatively making Americans less safe. But it was unconscionable that the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, and Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, failed to consider the prospect of Iranian terror attacks on the US. They should have alerted Kash Patel to the need to increase surveillance of domestic threats coming from Iran. All of them are responsible for any attacks that slip through surveillance networks because of the untimely firing of the FBI specialists.

Americans are stuck in the Middle East because State Department failed to plan for their evacuation.

As with the failure to coordinate with the FBI, the State Department failed to make plans to evacuate Americans from the Middle East. See NBC News, Americans told to leave Middle East due to Iran war face closed airports, reduced embassy staffing.

The lack of planning was exacerbated by Iran’s response to the war. Rather than hunkering down under US attacks, Iran has adopted a strategy of spreading the hostilities throughout the Middle East. See NYTimes, Iran’s Strategy: Expand the War, Increase the Cost, Outlast Trump (Gift article, accessible to all.)

Per the Times,

Faced with the overwhelming firepower of the United States and Israel, diplomats and analysts say, Iran is working to enlarge the battlefield from its own territory to the broader region. The goals are to damage oil and gas infrastructure in neighboring countries, shut the Strait of Hormuz to shipping and curtail air traffic — all to disrupt the economies of the Persian Gulf and drive up global energy prices and inflation. Iran will also be trying to exhaust the number of expensive missile interceptors held by its enemies.

“The war has become a test of wills and stamina,” said Vali Nasr of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. “Iran is facing qualitatively superior militaries, so the strategy is to test their will by expanding the battlefield, complicating the war and increasing the danger to the world economy.”

The US State Department and Department of Defense apparently failed to anticipate a regional war as Iran’s defensive strategy—a failure of contingency planning, wargaming, and imagination.

There are more examples, but you get the idea. The administration is hopelessly in over its head. And the prime culprit is Trump’s undisciplined, narcissistic approach to all things.

Concluding Thoughts

Tuesday was a confidence-building night. As Democrats supported talented, personable candidates, Republicans were choosing election deniers and extremist, scandal-ridden candidates whose only selling point is their loyalty to Trump. For a president with an approval rating of 38% (19 points underwater) who has a positive approval rating in only 9 states (AL, OK, TN, MT, UT, WV, ID, WY, and ND), loyalty to Trump as a qualification for office seems like a losing proposition.

We can’t rely on Republicans to defeat themselves. But neither should we ascribe to them strength or acumen that they do not possess. They are not only fighting the last war (2024), they are fighting the two prior wars (2016, 2020). Democrats must look to the future and convince Americans to join them on that path. Given the state of America under Trump’s reckless, corrupt, incompetent administration, that is a vision that should be far more attractive to voters than Trump’s, “I alone can solve it” approach to politics.

Talk to you tomorrow!

TALARICO

 

For the GOP, He’s a Primary Concern An enthusiasm advantage lifts Talarico in Texas Dan Rather and Team Steady Mar 4 Texas Senate candidate James Talarico and his supporters. Credit: Getty Images The last time Texas elected a Democrat to the Senate we were all much younger. The year was 1988. The internet was in its infancy. Cell phones weren’t yet a thing, and Lloyd Bentsen became the junior senator from Texas. In the ensuing thirty-eight years, Texas turned deep red and Republicans occupied both of the state’s Senate seats. Now, it may be the actions of a Republican president that finally end the Democrats’ drought. James Talarico, a 36-year-old Texas state lawmaker, won the Democratic Primary on Tuesday, defeating Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. That was mildly surprising, but here’s the stunner. In total, 100,000 more Democrats voted in the Texas primary than Republicans. Compared to the 2024 Senate primary, more than twice as many Democrats voted yesterday. That is rare in the Lone Star State. Not since 1970 have so many people voted in a Democratic midterm primary, according to CNN. It’s safe to say Democrats in Texas are more enthusiastic than they’ve been in several election cycles. Couple that with anger, disillusionment, and just plain exhaustion with our messy political system, and you see what can happen. Make no mistake, Texas is still a deeply red state, and flipping it will be harder than nailing Jell-O to a tree, but anger at Donald Trump over immigration, the economy, and now a war of choice is doing his party no favors. Gasoline is up nationwide by more than 20 cents a gallon this week. As primary voters in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas went to the polls on Tuesday, Trump and his loyalists were offering different reasons for attacking Iran. His wishy-washy justifications, lack of an exit strategy, and escalating retaliation by Iran are the latest developments that may hurt Republicans’ chances of holding on to their thin majorities in Congress come November. Trump’s inability to clearly articulate his rationale for the war is evidence that there may be another motive, one he doesn’t want to own. On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made matters worse. Rubio said Trump chose to strike Iran because there was “an imminent threat.” He went on to explain that the U.S. acted “in a defensive way,” because ,“we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.” So, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling the shots? “Rubio’s comments are a record-scratch moment. He said what most guessed was the case. That he said out loud this is a sea change in foreign policy. There will be massive calls for a walk back,” Mike Cernovich, a MAGA political commentator, wrote on social media. Trump tried to do some of that walking back. When asked if Israel pushed him to strike first, he denied it. “If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand,” he told reporters. At this point in most presidential terms, the president is laser-focused on the midterm elections, to either increase his party’s numbers in the House and Senate or, in Trump’s case, stem the predicted losses. But Trump doesn’t seem interested in helping his own cause. While his base is ever loyal, it is not big enough to hold onto the House or maybe even the Senate. You would think he’d be in full-on campaign mode, stumping for candidates, selling his domestic agenda, touting affordability policy initiatives. Instead, he is starting foreign wars, snatching foreign leaders, terrorizing American cities, and dodging and suppressing anything related to the Epstein files, all while the government is partially shut down for a second time. Texas is an indication that voters are paying attention to all the craziness, not to mention his forgotten promises. Talarico beat Crockett by seven points. The candidates, while both progressive, offered vastly different styles: a classic campaigner who often reaches across the aisle while quoting the Bible, versus a firebrand and former public defender who has relentlessly battled the Trump administration. “The people of our state gave this country a little bit of hope. And a little bit of hope is a dangerous thing,” Talarico said early Wednesday morning. Crockett vowed to work with Talarico to flip the Senate seat. “Texas is primed to turn blue and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person. This is about the future of all 30 million Texans and getting America back on track. With the primary behind us, Democrats must rally around our nominees and win,” she said in a statement. The Republican race was not so clear cut. The most expensive primary race in American electoral history just got more so. Incumbent Senator John Cornyn narrowly beat his opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, but neither got the requisite 50% to avoid a runoff. For the next 80 days, Cornyn and Paxton will be throwing punches at each other and money at the race, all while trying to curry Trump’s favor to secure an endorsement. Trump says he will endorse one of the two and ask the other to drop out before the runoff. Meanwhile, Talarico will be waiting and watching as the Republicans tear each other apart. One last note about Texas. Yesterday’s primary revealed more evidence that Trump’s favor with Latino voters may be fleeting. Democratic turnout in the heavily Latino Rio Grande Valley was up, and far larger than Republican turnout. In North Carolina, the Senate race is set with the two expected candidates, former Democratic governor Roy Cooper and former Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley. It is a seat the Democrats think they can take. What is of special interest about Tuesday’s North Carolina primary is that once again many more Democrats voted than Republicans. This time the gap was more than 200,000 votes. One last Senate race to keep an eye on is one in Montana. On Tuesday, former Green Beret, Rhodes Scholar, and University of Montana president Seth Bodnar entered the race as an independent, saying both parties have failed the American people. “The American Dream is getting crushed, and both parties are to blame. They pit us against each other, while they line their own pockets,” Bodnar said in a video launching his campaign. It is a shrewd strategy at a time when three-fourths of Americans polled disapprove of Congress. Primaries tend not to be predictive of general elections. What we can take away from Tuesday is that right now Democrats have an enthusiasm advantage. Many Americans are desperate to be able to do something to stop Trump’s authoritarian takeover of the country. “If the election were today….” Ah, but it isn’t. Anyone who has covered elections for a while learns that in politics overnight is a long time, and a week is forever. Which is to say that Democrats can be encouraged by the latest primary returns, but it would be a mistake to read too much into them. I thank you for reading. Stay Steady, Dan

 

How to Feel About Iran.

It's complicated.

SE Cupp Mar 4

In America, we like to know where we stand. And we increasingly seem to pride ourselves in our unabashed lack of nuance. Things are either black or white, right or left, red or blue. We can lament this binarism and often do, calling it tribalism or partisanship, but we can also acknowledge this is the rightful consequences of living in a country full of free speech and therefore strong opinions. What good is having them if we aren’t going to push them to their limits?

But war isn’t black or white — it’s infamously gray. And this one is particularly complicated.

The US-Israeli led strikes on Iran have opened a very familiar wound for a lot of Americans of a certain age – another war in the Middle East.

I was 12 when the first Gulf War started, and I have very formative memories of laying on the living room floor and watching CNN’s Bernie Shaw and Wolf Blitzer as Patriot missiles rained down on Iraq.

Then, there was the post-9/11 War in Afghanistan, which we only just ended five years ago; then, another Iraq War in 2003 that lasted for just under a decade; and we’re in the midst of an ongoing war against ISIS all over the Levant.

And that’s leaving out interventions in Libya, Syria and Yemen in between.

Whatever you think of the validity or prudence of those wars, they left serious scars on a now war-weary public, an electorate that now importantly includes many Trump voters. No longer made up of just the far-left MoveOn.org and Code Pink crowd, most Americans are over the forever wars that punctuated the last few decades.

With that as a baseline, this latest war in Iran doesn’t start out on great footing. We’ve seen little of the rallying around the flag we usually see in these scenarios, save for some of the cheerleading drones on Fox News – but even there, there’s some skepticism.

There’s also, in various political corners of the country, relief and even ecstasy over the fall of Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose 30-plus year reign of terror saw the executions of countless dissidents, protesters, and journalists, as well as the aiding and abetting of some of the world’s worst terror groups. Among many, many other evils.

I’ve talked to so many people who simply don’t know how to feel about this war, and that’s more than understandable – multiple things can be true at once, and never is that more true than in matters of foreign policy. It’s certainly true here.

It’s even true for me, someone who’s professionally opinionated. While I’m not a warmonger, I’m also not a pacifist. I believe that sometimes going to war is justified and even righteous, but I also believe in weighing the costs. The details and nuances around the edges will matter most.

So to be helpful, here are some points of fact — and opinion — about a very complicated conflict that may feel at odds with each other or incomplete, but that can without question be held at the same time. Here’s where I’m at:

Iran is bad and the world is safer with Khamenei gone.

Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, whose stated goals have included the total annihilation of Israel, the destruction of America and Western civilization, and the persecution of Christians and Jews. The clerical regime also murders its own people, and just since January of 2026 is accused of murdering as many as 30,000 Iranians. The Iranian regime is an affront to democracy and democratic values, including a free press, free elections, and human rights. It regularly threatens global commerce and energy supplies by targeting ships in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz. It backs the world’s bad actors, from Hamas and Hezbollah to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. And, it has an advanced nuclear program. All of that makes it well-worth our ire.

This war may embolden Iran, and that’s scary.

Concerns that Iran will act irrationally following these strikes are not unfounded. With their backs against the wall they may feel cornered and act out of desperation, even against their own self-interest. The instability this war could cause in the region will most certainly benefit Russia and China and could deeply damage the West’s economy, not to mention put thousands of lives at risk. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is talking tough about our military might, even saying we are “punching down” against Iran – and they are no match for our military – but there’s plenty Iran can do to punish the region and the West, from cyberattacks to terrorism. Those are real and worrisome.

The Iranian people deserve liberation.

In the hours following the toppling of Khamenei, it was hard not to be moved by the celebrations around the globe amongst Iranians and Iranian defectors. Here at home, everywhere from New York City to Los Angeles, Iranian-American communities erupted in celebration and joined Iranians in Australia, Europe and elsewhere to applaud the end of the Khamenei regime. For too long they’ve lived under the oppressive thumb of the clerics, afraid to criticize their own government and unable to live freely and democratically. We should welcome the prospect of a free Iran and, now that we’ve decided to intervene, do what we can to help them achieve it. Their future is in our hands now.

Trump is a hypocrite and a liar.

This is true any day of the week, but especially true on this specific issue. Trump campaigned in 2016 against Hillary Clinton on her support of the Iraq War, and made ending “forever wars” a giant part of his platform and base. This anti-war, America-First stance brought in all kinds of new voters and supporters, including isolationists like Tulsi Gabbard who joined his cabinet, and countless libertarian-ish voters who wanted America to mind its own business. And in 2020 and 2024 folks like Gabbard and JD Vance and Stephen Miller all campaigned AGAINST the idea of striking Iran – specifically.

“KAMALA WILL SEND YOUR SONS TO WAR,” Miller frequently threatened. Tulsi hawked “NO WAR WITH IRAN” t-shirts.

Hypocrisy always stinks, as do broken promises. Trump’s America-First voters should absolutely hold him accountable for both in November.

Trump is not the biggest problem, Congress is.

Without any evidence of an imminent attack on the US by Iran, Trump should have asked Congress for authority to launch strikes. But, also, Congress should have demanded it. While Trump often wants to act unilaterally, even if it’s unconstitutional, he shouldn’t get to. That’s not his fault. Republicans in Congress pushed snooze on their obligations so Trump could do illegal tariffs, illegal wars, illegal deportations, illegal boat strikes, all to remain in his good graces. But Congress took an oath to uphold the constitution, and should do its job. At the very least, lawmakers should demand answers to some pretty basic questions: What is the justification for war with Iran? What is our mission? Will we put boots on the ground? How long will we be there? Is this about regime change, oil, human rights, Israel, a bad economy and/or the Epstein files? If Congress were doing its job, we all might feel a little better about this intervention.

It’s no wonder this perfect tweet got more than 2 million views:

The risks are great – the upside may be greater.

As is always the case in war, the risks are considerable. From regional escalation to the economic impact, from the prospect of a long-term commitment to help stabilize the region to the certainty of civilian casualties, there is plenty of downside to going to war with Iran. And I think if you asked most national security experts, they would have cautioned against it – as would have most Republican political strategists. But, we’re here now – Trump did it and he’ll be judged for that decision, both by voters in the near term and history in the long term.

The upside, now that we’re here, could be substantial, from neutralizing Iran’s nuclear ambitions to decimating its proxy groups, from bringing democracy to the Iranian people to bringing the prospect of peace to the region, these aren’t small things. They’re things everyone on the right side of history should want, which means we should want success. Again, we can and should punish Trump and Republicans at the ballot box for their hypocrisy, lack of transparency, and possible violation of the law, but we should also want the greater mission, insofar as its been defined, to succeed.

It’s complicated. It’s possible to be hopeful for the Iranian people and worried for our American troops; optimistic for peace but anxious about retaliation; disgusted by the broken promises of the president but pulling for America’s ultimate success.

It’s also hard to know how long this will last – the administration is speaking out of both sides of its mouth, saying simultaneously that we’ve already won AND that we’re just getting started.

It’s okay to feel conflicted and uncertain. This is messy, and likely to only get messier.

 

When Kash Patel is under fire, FBI agents and staff get fired

An MS NOW analysis finds the FBI director often lashes out after his own bad press — by firing experienced agents and staffers.

MS NOW EXCLUSIVE: FBI agents concerned Kash Patel is purging staff to distract from his bad pressMarch 3, 2026 / 07:41

Mar. 4, 2026, 4:00 PM EST

By Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian

FBI Director Kash Patel has spent much of his first year in office battling a string of insider accusations that he has jeopardized criminal probes with his inexperience, misused an FBI jet for joyriding and has run a “rudderless ship” as head of the bureau.  

In key moments when he has faced public glare, Patel has chosen to fire sets of FBI agents and staff, an MS NOW analysis found. 

The result has often been the regeneration of headlines. This time, however, they have been about the firings themselves, which Patel’s critics say appears designed to ingratiate him with President Donald Trump. 

MS NOW found that in four key instances, Patel’s decision to fire FBI agents and staff came within hours or days of unflattering accounts emerging about him and his competency to run the FBI. The serial purges that followed, according to the FBI Agents Association, were unjustified, illegal and weakened the bureau, which has long been considered the world’s premier law enforcement agency.

“You know he has a trend, when he gets jammed up on something he literally fires people right after,” former FBI agent and MS NOW contributor Rob D’Amico said.

FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson said firings are based on internal investigations and findings.

“When individuals are found to have acted unethically or undermined the mission, this FBI fires them,” Williamson said. “Period.”

The most recent example came last month after a series of stories broke from Feb. 19 to Feb. 22 about Patel’s use of an FBI jet to travel to the Winter. Olympics, where he attended the Team USA men’s ice hockey games. Videos surfaced of him guzzling beer and chanting with the team in the locker room, despite Patel’s spokesperson describing his visit as a business trip.

According to two people familiar with the president’s thoughts on the matter, Trump was displeased with these public reports, but primarily by the video of Patel drinking on what was supposed to be a business trip to inspect Olympics security.  

“You know he has a trend, when he gets jammed up on something he literally fires people right after.”

Former FBI agent Rob D’Amico

NBC reported that Trump spoke directly to Patel to share his displeasure with him partying with the hockey players after flying to Italy on a government jet. 

A day later, on Feb. 25, Patel ordered the firing of at least 10 FBI agents and staff who participated in the investigation of Trump concealing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club after he left the presidency. Two more FBI staff were notified they were fired the following day, on Feb. 26.

With these terminations, Patel targeted an elite FBI counter-espionage unit that investigates mishandling of classified records, but also has an expertise in combatting threats from Middle Eastern adversaries, particularly Iran. 

Patel’s order weakening this team came days before Trump launched a bombing strike on Iran in coordination with Israel.

But a similar pattern has played out several times when fresh accounts have raised questions about Patel’s conduct and ability to lead the bureau, MS NOW found. Inside the FBI, staff and agents have been tracking this pattern and growing concerned that Patel is jeopardizing the FBI’s mission as a byproduct of trying to  eliminate his bad press and shore up support with Trump, according to multiple FBI sources who spoke to MSNOW.

“The FBI workforce is very intelligent and their job is to put together connected events,” D’Amico said. “They have noticed. They see it for what it is, actions of a selfish and insecure person.”

Under fire — and then fired

Play

Federal lawsuit alleges FBI Director Kash Patel knowingly broke the law with FBI firingsMarch 3, 2026 / 07:41

UNDER FIRE: In mid-September 2025, Patel faced a string of media reports about a lawsuit claiming he knowingly broke the law when he fired three top FBI officials, including former acting director Brian Driscoll. According to the suit, Patel stated he had to fire them for political reasons and to please the White House. 

FIRED: Within a week, Patel ordered the firing of 10 FBI agents who were pictured five years earlier taking a knee to show solidarity with people protesting the police killing of George Floyd.

Play

FBI Director Kash Patel throws temper tantrum after news reports of his private jet useMarch 3, 2026 / 07:41

UNDER FIRE: In late October 2025, a social media influencer revealed flight records showing Patel took his jet to see his girlfriend, a country music performer, sing the national anthem at an event at Penn State.  

FIRED: The day after the news broke, Patel fired a 27-year FBI veteran, Steven Palmer, who headed the Critical Incident Response Group that oversees the FBI jet fleet. 

Play

Exclusive: Patel ousts senior FBI agents linked to Trump probesMarch 3, 2026 / 07:41

UNDER FIRE: On Jan. 22, 2026, The New York Times published an article quoting numerous former and current FBI employees describing Patel as a unserious leader who had demoralized and weakened the FBI. The same day, former special counsel Jack Smith testified that he had substantial evidence to prove Trump committed serious crimes and was certain he could have convicted Trump if the cases had gone to trial. 

FIRED: The next day, Patel ordered the firing of six agents who were based out of the FBI’s Miami field office, as well as a handful of senior agents.

Play

‘Hypocrite’: Kash Patel fires agents with Iran expertise in an act of political retributionMarch 3, 2026 / 07:41

UNDER FIRE:  February stories about Patel flying on a government jet to the Olympics in Milan brought white-hot spotlight to Patel’s use of FBI resources and his justification for a transcontinental flight on the final days of the games. The flight to Italy was conservatively estimated to cost taxpayers at least $100,000 for the flight costs alone, not counting hotel and other trip expenses for Patel and the two pilots, staff and security detail accompanying him. An FBI spokesman told MS NOW that Patel’s purpose was a business trip. 

On Feb. 24, a day after a video emerged of Patel partying in the hockey team’s locker room, a new account emerged from a whistleblower, who said Patel’s use of the director’s jet for a personal trip to Florida in December and his confusing orders delayed an elite FBI evidence team from reaching the scene of a mass shooting at Brown University on Dec. 13. The Quantico-based agents, lacking a government plane, instead had to drive through the night from Virginia to Rhode Island to arrive at the scene the next morning, according to the whistleblower’s account. The whistleblower shared their account with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who then asked the Justice Department’s Inspector General and Government Accountability Office to investigate whether Patel’s use of FBI resources was compromising the FBI’s critical mission.  

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News

Patel ousts senior FBI agents linked to Trump probes, say sources

Ken Dilanian, Carol Leonnig

FIRED: On Feb. 25, Patel ordered the firing of at least 10 FBI agents and support staff who had worked on the investigation examining Trump’s withholding of classified records. The next day, the FBI notified two additional FBI staff involved on the same team that they no longer had jobs.

Steering headlines

After this public misstep, Patel also attempted to steer headlines to bolster his preferred narrative of inheriting a weaponized law enforcement agency. The firings of agents and staff in late February came on the same day as a Reuters story in which Patel said he discovered that FBI agents subpoenaed phone records for both him and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles in 2022 and 2023, when they were private citizens. 

Known as toll records, such phone metadata is routinely gathered by federal investigators. They would have shown whom Patel and Wiles were calling in periods of time related to the two federal probes of Trump’s withholding of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. 

The Reuters story also included two FBI officials speaking anonymously, saying the investigators, as part of their probe, improperly recorded a call between Wiles and her attorney, with the attorney’s permission but without Wiles’ knowledge.

“It is outrageous and deeply alarming that the previous FBI leadership secretly subpoenaed my own phone records — along with those of now White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight,” Patel said in a statement to Reuters.

But MS NOW has learned that the investigators did not record any call of Wiles and her attorney, according to three people with knowledge of the work of the special counsel teams. An attorney who represented Wiles in the special counsel investigations told MSNOW he also disputes this claim. He contacted a special counsel team representative last week to ask why Patel’s FBI was making this allegation.  

“Any suggestion that I consented to, or would even consider, recording Susie Wiles without her knowledge is false,” Wiles’ attorney said in an email to MSNOW. 

The most recent February firings also targeted an FBI squad known as CI-12, which investigates global espionage. The squad is a group of experienced agents who have prosecuted or intercepted spies who have sought to steal some of our country’s most closely guarded secrets and share them with foreign adversaries. The squad specializes in spying operations of foreign state actors, including Iran, and some experts have warned losses on that team could limit the FBI’s window into that country. 

Agents on the squad have worked on a host of high-profile cases, including the probe of classified information that John Bolton kept at his home, as well as Monica Witt, a Defense Department contractor and Air Force sergeant indicted for espionage in 2019 and accused of sharing classified military secrets to help Iran.  

One former law enforcement official who worked with the elite team said he found the loss of such experienced agents “genuinely frightening” for national security, noting that they helped quickly probe and identify foreign counterintelligence threats and later prosecute bad actors’ crimes. 

Three days after the firings, as the United States entered “Operation Epic Fury” in Iran, Patel posted on X: “While the military handles force protection overseas, the FBI remains at the forefront of deterring attacks here at home – and will continue to have our team work around the clock to protect Americans.”

The serial purges of veteran staff have roiled the FBI community, and both current and former FBI and Justice Department personnel have flagged the most recent firings as particularly dangerous for America’s national security.

The FBI’s assistant director for counterintelligence, who oversees many of the espionage squad agents who were fired and is one of the senior-most leaders in the FBI, held a meeting with his staff last Thursday. He warned that he didn’t believe he could save anyone’s jobs and that he expected more firings, according to one person briefed on the meeting.  

The assistant director, Roman Rozhavsky, said he understood if agents wanted to leave their jobs, but said he feared they would be replaced with agents lacking their years of experience and hoped they would stay to help keep the country safer, the person said.

The FBI’s Williamson disputed the account of the Assistant Director’s comments at his staff meeting.

“This is inaccurate and not what AD Rozhavsky said,” he told MS NOW.