The View host was disgusted by video footage of FBI Director Kash Patel partying with the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team in Milan this weekend, but Whoopi Goldberg had a more “positive” take on it. The ABC host suggested that maybe the FBI let Patel go just to get him out of the way.
In the video, Patel is seen celebrating with the victorious U.S. team in the locker room on Sunday, shouting and drinking. However, an FBI spokesman insisted that Patel was in Milan on official business, which is why he used a taxpayer-funded plane to get there. His trip to the Olympics was a perfect coincidence.
“Maybe someone from the FBI will say ‘Yeah, Cash, go ahead’ so they don’t have to deal with him,” Whoopi suggested Monday. “Because they know he doesn’t know what he’s doing. They know he’s incompetent, they know he’s just – he’s a joke. He’s a joke to the rest of the world because it’s not a joke to most of the people who work in the FBI, they’re the ones who have their eyes on the ball.”
Meanwhile, other women at the table were less optimistic. Host Ana Navarro was quick to remind viewers that Patel had been accused of misusing FBI aircraft before, and he wasn’t the only one.
“The bottom line is these people don’t care at all about wasting taxpayers’ money and the way they behave – I don’t even know what Kash Patel is doing there,” she said.
In addition to the use of taxpayer money, the appearance of Patel’s trip troubled host Sarah Haines even more, considering how much is going on in the country.
“Right now, the world doesn’t feel very settled or stable, and you’re seeing the head of the FBI and drinking beer in the locker room,” she said. “I just don’t think that’s the case — he’s already under scrutiny for a thousand reasons because this administration doesn’t define competency.”
“So I think when you have people like that and everything happens and then this is what you see, I just think it’s a little insulting to the American people,” Haynes continued.
Haines lamented that she missed the days when the FBI director was less famous, prompting guest host Amanda Carpenter to explain why this happened and why she, too, was so troubled by the footage.
“The reason we don’t see them is they’re usually busy,” she said. “There’s a lot to do. God forbid something happens, it could have been avoided, and it’s not because he was worried about hanging out in the men’s lacrosse locker room.”
“The View” airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.
The post “Opinion”: Whoopi wonders if the FBI told Kash Patel to go to the Olympics “so they wouldn’t have to deal with him” appeared first on TheWrap.