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Leave it to Donald Trump and his administration to break one thing overjoyed love Personnel USA’s men’s hockey Olympic accumulate and switch it into a tawdry, self-serving spectacle. What began as a unifying, goosebumps-inducing sports activities 2nd snappy grew to alter into a case watch in how the Trump administration degrades every establishment it touches — from the White Condominium to the FBI to the Iciness Olympics.

There’s a particular roughly hypocrisy so brazen, so cartoonishly on-the-nostril, that it nearly defies satire. FBI Director Kash Patel, who spent years burning with righteous fury over the perceived corruption of the bureau’s management class — who took to his podcast to search files from that weak director Christopher Wray’s authorities-funded G5 be grounded, who testified sooner than Congress in precisely contained outrage over FBI directors the usage of taxpayer planes for non-public scoot — has now been caught doing precisely that and extra, and worse. And he did it with a beer in his hand and a gold medal round his neck that he did nothing to manufacture.

Patel flew on a authorities jet to Italy, arriving — with unprecedented convenience — proper in time to salvage the United States men’s hockey crew accumulate gold in Milan, defeating Canada 2-1 in time past regulation for its first Olympic title since 1980. After looking at from a field, the director stormed the locker room. 

“F**k yeah,” he said, craning his head into cell phone movies next to star Dylan Larkin. He had a beer in hand whereas on the phone with Trump. “I’m f**kinfolk’ on it,” he said, pledging to the president he’d return the crew in time to succor Tuesday evening’s Impart of the Union handle.

Patel spent Sunday celebrating in Milan whereas, support within the U.S., a 21-year-extinct gunman from North Carolina hooked in to conspiracy theories tried to abolish the president at Mar-a-Lago, and whereas American vacationers were stranded in Mexico, compelled to shelter in site whereas violence erupted from drug cartels offended at the killing of “El Mencho,” the Jalisco drug lord in an operation that was reportedly assisted by American intelligence and security. 

When the backlash came for Patel, he answered the manner every Trump-generation reliable does when caught behaving love a frat boy on the public dime: He known as it patriotism. “For the very concerned media,” he wrote on X, “yes, I like The United States.” 

Patel’s spokesperson insisted that the reason of the Italy fade to was reliable: meetings with Italian guidelines enforcement, consultations with Ambassador Tilman Fertitta, oversight of FBI Olympic security coordination. But those claims were undercut by timing. The director confirmed up at the very quit of the Olympics, coincidentally proper in time for the gold medal match. Final July, Patel tweeted that he would succor the Olympics if the US men’s hockey crew made the glorious match. 

Patel’s defenders in MAGA media are making an are attempting desperately to express this into the equal of Barack Obama’s tan suit — a nothingburger inflated by hysterical liberals.

Patel’s defenders in MAGA media are making an are attempting desperately to express this into the equal of Barack Obama’s tan suit — a nothingburger inflated by hysterical liberals. “Is Kash Patel no longer allowed to revel in his weekends?” asked correct-skim influencer CJ Pearson. Will Cain declared that every proud American is smiling by the video. Clay Travis argued critics are why “no fashioned men vote for them.” 

Barstool founder Dave Portnoy posted on X, “Anyone who is exasperated about this video has a dump in their pants.” But that didn’t pause one in every of his writers, Eric Nathan, from slamming the FBI director. Patel “agreed to guard pedophiles for the authorities and in alternate he gets to attain create a wish side quests on taxpayer money,” Nathan wrote on X. “Like, it if truth be told makes a ton of sense, he took a job he’s wildly unqualified for and agreed no longer to attain accurately or the least bit, so he might well well as successfully whoop it up sooner than he goes to hell.” Barstool’s Jack Mac asked on TikTok, “What’s Kash Patel doing in Italy? Why is he there? Nancy Guthrie is accumulated lacking. Why is he there? Did his girlfriend possess a efficiency or one thing?”

Others within the Trump administration piled on the media-bashing to possess a ideally suited time Personnel USA’s Olympic accumulate. “Get your self an FBI Director who loves The United States as remarkable as Kash, a first generation American,” Richard Grenell posted on X. 

Despite the causes, it’s annoying to ignore the sense of obvious fright. This isn’t about one beer. It’s a few sample.

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It’s about SWAT security reportedly assigned to Patel’s girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, a country singer and correct-skim activist. It’s about flights that blur the line between reliable duty and non-public indulgence. It’s in regards to the usage of Olympic security as a pretext for VIP field seats. It’s about treating federal site of job as a rewards program for loyalty to Trump.

On the tip of 2025’s Department of Govt Effectivity reorganizations and firings, Elon Musk demanded federal workers listing 5 issues they carried out a week or possibility being fired. What are Patel’s 5? Chugged a beer. Purchased a medal placed round his neck. Sang Toby Keith. Posted a defensive X thread. Lashed out at “very concerned media.”

Within the meantime, profession FBI brokers were purged for working Jan. 6 conditions or watchdog assignments. Others were pulled off human trafficking and violent crime investigations to wait on with immigration crackdowns. This day marks the twenty third day of the Nancy Guthrie search, and brokers from D.C. to Phoenix are grinding by actual conditions — whereas their boss pops champagne in a international country.

The optics of self-enrichment are terrible because they’re actual.

Trump officials treat their jobs as alternatives for non-public branding, rating-settling and rising their non-public wealth. It’s basically the most consistent feature of this administration. From synthetic intelligence movies on Reality Social depicting Trump punching a Canadian hockey player to the reliable White Condominium myth posting an AI image of a bald eagle drowning a Canadian goose, they degrade even basically the most innocuous symbols of patriotism into trolling exercises.

The hypocrisy of it all is numbing. For years MAGA has crowed that sports activities shouldn’t be political — unless it’s correct-skim politics, in which case it’s interestingly predominant.

The hypocrisy of it all is numbing. For years MAGA has crowed that sports activities shouldn’t be political — unless it’s correct-skim politics, in which case it’s interestingly predominant.

Trump told the men’s hockey crew he would “begrudgingly” invite the ladies’s gold medal crew to the White Condominium, too, or else he’d be impeached. The boys laughed. The women who made history and carried the medal depend? Their achievements were diminished to a misogynistic punchline by a president who campaigned on supposedly preserving ladies’s sports activities.

Disaffected MAGA voters — the self-described “The United States First” crowd — see it. They didn’t join taxpayer-funded side quests. They didn’t vote for FBI directors who look love they’re auditioning for Barstool screech material. 

The political context makes it worse. In accordance with files analyst Henry Enten, Trump’s approval among independents is the weakest it has ever been at this point in both length of time — plunging dramatically in contrast to prior years. Pre-Impart of the Union polling shows a get approval deep underwater, a ways worse than in 2017, 2019 or 2020.

Independents arrive to a resolution elections. They recoil from corruption and chaos. They achieve no longer seem like impressed by locker-room theatrics paid for with public funds. A recent Washington Post poll chanced on that, by a 26-point margin, other folks think Trump is the usage of the presidency to enhance himself.

MAGA media thinks bluster will effect them. They suspect yelling “flawed scandal” loudly ample will remodel optics into victimhood. It’s labored sooner than, after all.

But that is diverse. Voters are tired. They’re bored with looking at serious institutions hollowed out by unserious other folks and of being told obvious self-dealing is correct “blowing off steam.”

MAGA media’s reflexive defense of Patel will backfire on the White Condominium because it reinforces the very fable sinking Trump with independents: that that is basically the most irascible and self-serving administration in fashionable American history.

The optics are defective for the reason that ethics are worse. No quantity of correct-skim outrage laundering is going to trade that.

Cybersecurity expert

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