Kash Patel has had a long week.

The FBI director and frequent social media poster faced scrutiny for how he handled the Charlie Kirk assassination investigation, including from members of his own party. Conservative activist Chris Rufo posted on X: “We would be wise to take a moment and ask whether Kash Patel has what it takes to get this done.”

Before he was President Donald Trump’s pick for FBI director, Patel was a lawyer and national security aide in Trump’s first term. Not only that, but he was a MAGA golden child, reported conspiracy theorist, and big-time critic of the FBI, wanting the headquarters shut down on day one, and reopened “the next day as a museum of the deep state.”

Patel had several stumbles early on in the Kirk investigation, posting on X that the FBI had someone in custody, only for officials in Utah to announce, around the same time, that they were still looking for the suspect. He was then called to Capitol Hill to testify in front of the Senate and the House, where he spent two days being grilled by lawmakers about the Epstein files, among other things.

To make sense of Patel’s recent blunders — and why Trump is backing him anyway — Today, Explained’s Sean Rameswaram talked to Axios White House reporter Marc Caputo.

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