FBI Director Kash Patel sparked outrage Tuesday after being featured in a preview for an upcoming podcast with his girlfriend as a fullscale manhunt for the Brown University shooter goes on.
“Doing podcast fluff while the Brown shooter is still at large?” wrote Blakeley Bartley, a New York songwriter and political commentator who’s amassed more than 70,000 followers on X.
Patel, 45, was featured Tuesday evening in a video with his girlfriend, 26-year-old country music singer Alexis Wilkins, to promote an upcoming podcast with Katie Miller, the wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, scheduled to release Tuesday evening. It’s unknown when the podcast was recorded, but the optics of a lighthearted discussion about when Patel may propose to his girlfriend, promoted while a mass shooter remains at large, drew the ire of many.
“As FBI Director, shouldn’t Kash be focused on finding the mass killer still on the loose rather than discussing his private life on a podcast?” wrote Pekka Kallioniemi, a Finnish researcher and political commentator who’s amassed more than 206,000 followers on X.
Patel has drawn scrutiny over his relationship with Wilkins following reports that he used an FBI Gulfstream luxury jet to attend one of her performances, and then fired an FBI veteran who he accused of leaking details about the controversial trip to the media. Patel’s also been accused of ordering FBI agents to drive his girlfriend’s “inebriated” friend home and assigning an FBI swat team to provide security for her.
“Personally, I’d rather see the director of the FBI catching criminals and putting them behind bars vs going on podcasts with his girlfriend,” wrote Michael Zimmermann, a political commentator from Texas who’s amassed nearly 4,000 followers on X.
Hey no rush on solving the at large killer in my hometown
— Hayden (@the_transit_guy) December 16, 2025