FBI Director Kash Patel on Sunday dropped a celebratory promo video applauding himself and his bureau for getting “it done” at the World Cup just hours after Spain hoisted the actual winner’s trophy.
Patel, in a caption attached to an FBI hype video shared on his X account, claimed there were “ZERO major security incidents” across 78 U.S.-hosted matches in what he called the “safest and most secure World Cup in history.”
“We put on the largest sporting event in the history of the world,” began Patel in the clip while speaking about a tournament that was also hosted by Canada and Mexico.
The video sees the FBI director exiting a private jet, waving in the direction of something (or someone) out of frame and talking to agents as the winner’s trophy sits on a table around them.
The video cuts to Patel autographing a World Cup poster before tossing to several shots of him thanking officials with the bureau as he makes his way around a temporary base set up outside of MetLife Stadium, the site of the World Cup final on Sunday.
“We just can’t say enough about the preparation and the execution, it’s been flawless,” Patel concluded.
Patel’s heaps of praise for the job-doers at the FBI follow several damning reports about his leadership at the bureau.
He’s been accused of excessive drinking and unexplained absences; arranging a taxpayer-funded security boost for his country singer girlfriend Alexis Wilkins; compromising a probe into an alleged terror plot at the White House UFC event; and taking part in a “VIP snorkel” experience during a work trip to Hawaii.
Patel was roundly mocked by critics on X, including Ron Filipkowski, editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch Network, who wrote, “And the true hero of the World Cup is, of course … Kash Patel.”
One user clowned Patel for going full “performance theater” in the clip while another, Vanity Fair’s Washington correspondent Aidan McLaughlin, wrote that the “dramatic” promo video was further evidence of his role in an “influencer administration.”