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May 13, 2026

Trump FBI Director SNAPS Over Drinking Scandal As Meltdown Backfires At Hearing

Donald Trump's FBI Director Kash Patel visibly panics in embarrassing meltdown during Senate hearing after getting cornered on the over two dozen sources alleging him to have a drinking problem, which could prove disastrous for the FBI. John Iadarola and Sharon Reed break it down on The Damage Report. Leave a comment with your thoughts below!
  • 8 minutes
That's a provably false statement. made a couple others that are provably false. This is from the mouth of the FBI director. The one who false statements is you. My final question to you, Mr. Director, is do you know that it is a crime to lie to Congress? Do you know that? That's my last question. I have not lied to Congress. I didn't ask you that. to Congress as you. [00:00:22] I love that in the one second of video we get of Cash Patel there, he looks wildly out of his element and probably a little bit hung over. And I think that you need to bear that in mind as you watch these clips. Go easy on Cash Patel, this sound is just ringing in his ears. He's been drinking his own, I'm sure, finely produced whiskey. So he goes before Congress, [00:00:41] he immediately gets asked about the historically well sourced reporting of his apparent terrible drinking problem, and he freaks out about it. He decides to take the now proven failed strategy of Kristi Noem Pambandi of just lashing out at anybody that questions you. I'll remind [00:01:00] you, Patel, those women are out of a job now. You might want to mix it up a little bit. But anyway, he's reminded there that it's illegal to lie to Congress. He's lying to Congress about his drug problem. Let's roll a little bit more of the tape and see how he comports himself. Is it your testimony that those allegations are categorically false? Unequivocally categorically [00:01:22] false. So there have been no occasions during your tenure when FBI personnel were unable to promptly reach you? Absolutely not. You can ask my entire workforce, they hear from me at every single hour of the day, as do these great gentlemen here, as do the men and women of the interagency and state and local law enforcement in the White House. And so there have been [00:01:39] no occasions when your security detail had difficulty waking or locating you, is that right? No, it's a total farce. I don't even know where you get this stuff, but it doesn't make it credible because you say so. I'm not saying that Director Patel, it's been written and documented. You are literally saying it. No, I'm saying that these are reports, Director [00:01:57] Patel. Unlike your baseless reports, the only person that was slinging margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar with a convicted gang banging rapist was you. The only person that ran up a $7,000 bar tab in Washington DC at lobby just to me was you. This suggests to [00:02:15] me allegations are true. Yeah, I don't know. If you're being accused of having these ongoing problems of substance abuse, controlling yourself, all of that. I don't know, melting down and freaking out on video doesn't seem like the best strategy. And I know that he's in the [00:02:30] Trump administration and they're supposed to be combative. But again, I'll remind you that didn't work for the last two people that tried it. I don't know why it would work for him. And it's a little bit hard for us to believe you, Cash Patel, when- Like every image we have of you is you drunk, you flew to Italy to sling back beers with the boys, the hockey [00:02:50] team right there. You're the one that put your name on custom branded bottles of whiskey. You sure seem to be like an interested party when it comes to alcohol. Remember there were those leaked photos from his iCloud account or whatever he's drinking and smoking cigars [00:03:07] there. This is a dude who desperately wants to appear to be cool. It's a fool's errand, but he's willing to potentially take the FBI down in pursuit of it. And you saw right there, he mentioned the margaritas with felons. So when uh Senator Van Hollen went down to uh [00:03:25] be with Abrego Garcia, who was deported from the country, being held in Seacat and all that, uh effectively the dictatorship that was housing him there had put margaritas on the table. They didn't actually drink margaritas. Cash Patel knows that that's disinformation. This [00:03:41] is how disreputable he is, how little he can be trusted. And so we might get to a little bit more, but Sharon, I wanna give you a chance to jump in. Well, this guy is not just immature, okay? And he practiced that, well, he was up probably all night practicing that line. If [00:03:57] this guy's a liability, he is a safety risk to every American, okay? Forget just blackmailing him for the things that he's doing and up to. He's just a huge risk to all of us and why [00:04:15] he's there. Has he not learned anything from Pam Bondi? Donald Trump doesn't like him, isn't gonna be loyal to him, and doesn't like the bomb throwing thing they do in these hearings because they have no truth to fall back on. He's a real sick puppy, this Cash Patel guy. [00:04:33] He really is. So look, we know that again, it's already been incredibly well reported. He wants to pretend that the senators just saying this stuff. No, the Atlantic reported it. had many, many, many sources. And ever since they decided to go after Sarah Fitzpatrick, [00:04:52] the reporter that did the initial reporting, more and more have been coming in. She says that she has been inundated with messages from new sources corroborating her reporting. Fitzpatrick said that she used more than two dozen, two. sources for her initial reporting. [00:05:08] Is there anyone in the FBI that didn't contact her about his drinking problem? And how bad of a problem must he have that seemingly everybody has witnessed it? And of course, he's not concerned about controlling his substance abuse problem. He's concerned with trying to control [00:05:27] the leaking about his substance abuse problem. So they've been doing the polygraphs and they've been trying to hunt down the leakers and everything. And so Sarah Fitzpatrick says, that some of our sources were not merely panicking, but profoundly emotional in expressing their concerns to her describing them as quote grown men who have done nothing but counterintelligence and solving [00:05:45] some of the worst of the worst crimes. We're not easily scared, intimidated and concerned, but they are concerned right now because they know how dangerous it is to have a drunk as the head of the FBI, particularly at a time we also have a drunk as the head of the Pentagon. [00:06:02] Why is it that Donald Trump, guy who supposedly never consumes alcohol, can't seem to choose a person for a leadership position who can ever put down the bottle? Anyway, we're going to give you just one more clip to close things out. Take a look. only thing I know is you're [00:06:18] the one drinking margaritas with Actually, that's a false statement and I'm asking you about your statements. I've answered that. And I'm asking you about a particular report. And it's not a report. So let me ask you this. um Are you willing to take the test that it's [00:06:39] called the audit test that members of our active duty military and others take to determine whether they have a drinking problem? I'll take any test you're willing to take. will take it, Dr. Peteli. I'll take it. You ready to take it? Let's go. Yes or no? Let's go. [00:06:54] Side by side. I'll take it. God, you just need to witness him for a couple of seconds to know that you would not want to have to stand next to a person at a bus stop like this, let alone to put him in charge of one of the most important elements of our bureaucracy. Not just in an [00:07:12] abstract sense, but important in terms of safeguarding us. This is a fundamentally unserious person who cannot, he literally cannot control himself. You think he's going to help safeguard us against potential hate crimes, terror attacks. I hope that all of those people in the lower [00:07:35] ranks who are currently leaking about his massive problems, I hope that they're still able to do their job because they're the only thing between us and utter chaos. He is at best an obstacle to it. Any final thoughts Sharon? No, there's not going to be any test, okay? The [00:07:51] member of Congress will take the test, Cash Patel will not. He was just bloviating BS up there, okay? I think you can look at anecdotally, you can look at some of the things that have been reported. You can look at him until there is a severe problem again. There's a diagnosis [00:08:11] for it somewhere. We may not be qualified to make it on this show, but we know what we see and we know what needs to be done. He's gotta be removed. 100%. And by the way, it is obviously way too much to ask, but what if the two dozen sources came out together? Wow. And did a press [00:08:28] conference? mean, again, uh why ask a rhetorical question? What would happen if they did? uh Trump would say that they're lying, Kash Patella would say they're lying, they'd all be fired. It could be- It could be 25 FBI officials with a collective 300 years of service to the country, [00:08:46] and it wouldn't matter. They would can them all, they would further imperil our safety to defend the neck of Kash Patel. It's grotesque.

The Damage Report: May 13, 2026

Hosts: John Iadarola   Guests: Sharon Reed