Kash Patel parties with Team USA after saying he was in Milan for business

So as of this afternoon, the 2026 Olympic Games in Milan have officially come to an end and Team USA finished out the games by winning gold in the men's hockey final against Canada. It is the first gold medal since 1980 and of course the very famous miracle on ice. Among those celebrating with the team was none other than FBI Director Kash Patel, seen on social media in the locker room after Team USA's victory. There's also this video circulating on social media of the FBI Director with a beverage of some kind as he chants along with the athletes. Never mind his office told MSNOW that he was flying to Milan on the FBI's Gulfstream jet strictly for business and not to watch hockey. MSNOW has not independently verified this video. We have reached out to Patel and the FBI for comment. Patel has since posted quote for the very concerned media, and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted gold medal winners on Team USA invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys. Joining us now, Pablo Torre, host of the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast. He is of course an MSNOW contributor. Pablo, great to have you on the show. Do you think that was the first party Kash Patel was ever invited to? I mean, look, he's living life like a Make-A-Wish kid right now, which is kind of adorable. He is, by the way, sincerely a huge hockey fan on my show, Pablo Torre Finds Out. I remember last year he was like flying around to watch Alex Ovechkin break the Wayne Gretzky record. He was popping up in games in New York and down in DC. I was like, FBI Director's got nothing to do then to see Alex, Alexander Ovechkin break the record. And more than that, what we reported in the episode, Eamon, is that he is left alone. The FBI, as constituted, knows to leave him alone on Sundays in general because he's playing rec league hockey for a team in DC called the Dons, which is just poetically kind of perfect, of course. But this is what he loves. And you do the accounting on this, right? So previously, of course, when he's a podcaster and not the unbelievable director of the FBI, he is criticizing Christopher Wray about all the G5 trips and personal vacations and all the money taxpayers have spent on an unelected position, enabling a lifestyle that, of course, is contrary to anything resembling working in service of the American people. And here you have him, you know, doing something that I think on the one hand makes him feel human until you realize how unbelievably self-centered the entire explanation is for why he's there in the first place, which is also, by the way, fundamentally dishonest. So there's also that. Yeah. Yeah. I will point out that actually a comms person at the FBI tweeted something earlier, like demanding a correction and an apology from our colleague Ken Delanian, who had said something about like, was he going to was the FBI director going to go to any parties while he was there? I forget what it was. Demanded an apology. That's right. And then immediately afterward, Kash Patel posted a photo from the locker. I did want to ask you about another sort of nexus of politics and sports that has gotten some attention this week. So J.D. Vance has made some comments about the ability for athletes to speak their minds. Let's play that. When you're representing the country, you're representing Democrats and Republicans. You're there to play a sport and you're there to represent your country and hopefully win a medal. You're not there to pop off about politics. So when Olympic athletes enter the political arena, they should expect some pushback. Pablo, this has obviously been an issue for decades and decades about whether athletes who are representing the United States should be able to speak out on political or social issues. One twist in this that I thought was kind of interesting this time around is that J.D. Vance has also been critical of Eileen Gu, who grew up here in the United States and is skiing, I believe, on behalf of China and saying, well, why isn't she representing the United States? So it kind of seems like you're hearing these voices like Vance saying, well, if you don't like the United States, if you want to compete in the Olympics and you don't like what we're doing here in the United States, then go elsewhere. But then they go elsewhere and then they're still unhappy about it. I don't know. How do you square that circle? Yeah, look, it's on the one hand, of course, completely inconsistent with his position whenever any celebrity says anything that is pro his side of the political spectrum. Right. So if you're Kevin Sorbo, free speech for the if you are certainly any team USA player who dares to criticize the fact that American citizens are getting killed in Minnesota silence. Right. And so there's just that part of it. But then there's the other part, which I think is deeper and more disturbing, which is that and I hate to be the guy who is pedantically explaining the First Amendment to anybody at this point. But the whole point of being an American at the Global Village, where none of the autocratic countries are enabling their athletes to speak out against their governments, is that you get to enable that freedom. You get to enact it. And it's really a distinguishing characteristic. Again, I feel like this is just civics. But, you know, it's James Baldwin who said, I love America. Therefore, I must preserve the right to critique her endlessly. Like we are in a country where that is almost the point. And so for me, when I see that it not only is a historical because Tommy Smith and John Carlos in the Mexico City Games in 68 all the way. I mean, Jesse Owens, you know, beating the Nazis in Germany during the Olympics in the 40s. You go to any number of Olympic games and you see examples of people using. I mean, it's not even especially a political party sort of thing that I'm thinking about. I'm just thinking about how when people find that there is something so abhorrent happening in the wider world, they feel obliged to recognize it. You know, sports is often a weather vane. You know, it's not necessarily leading the charge. It's reacting to the winds of change. And in this case with Team USA in Milan, in Italy, it was there are a number of things that are happening back home that are so disturbing that when we're asked how do we feel about being Americans, we're going to gently acknowledge that fact and be, of course, met with calls for censorship, which is the least American part of all of it. Yeah. And we are all better off for athletes being honest about how they feel, because, as you said, it is the most American thing anyone can do to speak their mind freely. Pablo Torre, it's great to see you as always. Really appreciate your insights this evening.