FBI Director Kash Patel sparked mass confusion Tuesday after being grilled by Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) over the FBI’s bizarre new recruiting policy regarding bestiality.
Late last month, reporting revealed that the FBI had quietly loosened its vetting standards to make acts of bestiality no longer an instant disqualifier. At the time, the change was met with disbelief and scrutiny.
On Tuesday during a Senate hearing, Kennedy grilled Patel on the policy shift in a bizarre exchange that dumbfounded countless onlookers.
When asked to explain the rationale behind the change, Patel told Kennedy that it was implemented to protect victims of bestiality, as the FBI’s previous policy “automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it.”
“Either side of what, the bestiality? So you disqualified the animal?” Kennedy scoffed.
Patel laughed before jokingly defending the FBI’s K-9 units, which include English Labradors and German Shepherds.
“All this stuff has really hurt the FBI, so I’m trying to get to the bottom of this,” Kennedy continued. “Why would you, in light of what we’re going through, even get into bestiality?”
Patel insisted that the FBI was “not into bestiality” before Kennedy abruptly cut him off, shouting: “I know you’re not!”
“We are not a serious country anymore,” argued journalist Simon Thompson in response to a viral clip of the exchange. “This administration is beyond an embarrassing joke.”
Journalist Oliver Knox issued a scramble of words to express his confusion: “what the what the what the what the what,” he wrote.
Even with Patel’s explanation, Rolling Stone’s Nikki McCann Ramírez expressed confusion over the rationale behind the policy change.
“I’m sorry but is there a large contingent of victims of bestiality trying to get into the FBI that I was not aware of?” she wrote in a social media post on X.
I'M SORRY? https://t.co/d88SGmtGxt
— Mike (not a) Rothschild (@rothschildmd) September 15, 2026