Kash Patel Spars on the Hill, New Crooks Files, Nick Reiner Won't Face Death Penalty: AM Update 9/16

Good morning, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. It's Wednesday, September 16th, 2026, and this is your AM Update. By the way, I want to know how your wealth increased 4,000 percent since you became United States Senator. An FBI oversight hearing erupting into insults, accusations, and downright bizarre exchanges as Director Kash Patel battles fierce critics on Capitol Hill. A possible sighting of would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks with two unidentified men weeks before the assassination attempt, among the new details emerging from the latest release of FBI files on the Trump shooter. Every Democrat senator suddenly races to a microphone to talk about AI after being eerily silent for months and months and months. Attorney General Todd Blanch facing the White House press corps weighing in on the escalating AI battle, and then some. And the death penalty off the table for Rob Reiner's son, Nicholas Blanchard. All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM Update. 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Lawmakers from both parties pressing Patel over everything from controversial firings and election monitoring to the Bureau's newly released hiring standards. Director Patel opening on offense, listing out a series of FBI accomplishments under his leadership. The FBI has arrested 54,000 violent criminals. That's up 90% from the 18-month period prior to that. 31,000 violent gang members have been arrested by the FBI. We've removed, the FBI has removed 3,258 kilograms of fentanyl. That's enough to kill a quarter billion Americans. We have located, found, and identified 11,081 child victims. That is up 21%. That is making America safe. We have arrested 5,072 child predators and human traffickers. That's up 13%. This FBI have arrested 4,265 child predators and human traffickers. That's up 13%. That's up 13%. That's up 13%. foreign terrorist organization-related affiliates. That's up 38 percent, including the fact that this FBI has stopped 1,100 criminal perpetrators from committing terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. The victory lap soon giving way to one of the hearing's strangest disputes. CBS News reporting the FBI issued new guidance in June removing the automatic disqualification of some applicants who previously stole from an employer, paid for sex, or engaged in bestiality or animal cruelty before turning 18. Ranking Democrat Dick Durbin arguing the bureau had lowered its standards, while Director Patel contended the change had been badly mischaracterized. Thank you for bringing this up so we can get to the truth of the matter. We did not want to punish victims of bestiality, victims who were trafficked. We didn't want to make it an automatic disqualification for the FBI to consider you if you are a victim of these awful heinous acts. They still have to go to the same rigorous standards and application process. We are not going to target victims and prevent them from serving in their capacity to serve this country, who may be most motivated to serve our FBI workforce. He's no longer protecting those who've been charged with bestiality. He's protecting those who are victims. Just turned it upside down. No, you did. You actually did, because you lied. Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana trying to pin down precisely who the revised policy was intended to protect. Tell me what it said before. It automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it. Obviously, we are never going to hire the criminal side of what the bestiality. Yes. So you disqualified the animal. Well, I don't think we have great canines, but we're not going to disqualify. I understand. I'm trying to understand. Why you did this? If Joe participated in bestiality, not as the animal, but as the human, don't you think he ought to be disqualified? If he voluntarily did it, sure. But if he was trafficked into it. Okay. How do you involuntarily do it? In a lot of these cases, when human traffickers, who are some of the worst individuals on planet Earth, they don't just traffic you for prostitution. They traffic you for degrading acts of all kind. And they force you into that type of conduct. And some of these individuals would go on to be law enforcement officers who qualified to be law enforcement officers and later applied to the FBI. Director Patel saying he initially reacted to the proposal much as Kennedy did before bureau officials showed him actual cases involving trafficking victims who later applied to the FBI. The revised policy allowing those applicants to receive individual consideration, with Patel insisting anyone who voluntarily committed the act would still be rejected. And prosecuted. Two months before the midterm elections, the questioning then shifting to what role the FBI intends to play on election day. Democrat Senator Peter Welsh of Vermont pointing to comments from Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate John James, who claimed Patel personally assured him that the bureau would have a presence in both Western and Southeastern Michigan. The question triggering one of the hearings most explosive exchanges. We have election coordinators manned at all 56 field offices. Election integrity is of paramount importance. This FBI is not going to shy away from that effort. And if you want to continue lying about the men and women of the FBI so you can have your four second camp and go ahead. Do you pledge that you will not in any way interfere in the will of the American people when they go to the polls in November? I pledge unequivocally that I will not participate in your charade. Then why are you being such a panderer to President Trump, who's still claiming that he won the 2020 election? What I believe in is the rule of law. What I will always believe in is executing the rule of law. Are you done with your campaign ad? By the way, it's been rigged. I want to know how your wealth increased 4000 percent since you became a United States senator. The temperature climbing even higher during Democrat Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey's turn. Once Mr. Booker's allotted time expired, Republican Chairman Chuck Grassley trying unsuccessfully to move the hearing along as Booker and Patel continued trading insults. I'm going to hold this man accountable for as long as he's in this job until he gets fired, which he probably will because he's incompetent at his job and continues to do things that merit his removal. Yes. Shame on you, sir. Director Patel, were you done? By the way, violent crime by the FBI in New Jersey are up 75 percent on top of the historic results we've already delivered for the American people. Yeah. Thanks to the state police. Irrespective of the lies that he continues to tell. There are nothing I have said here is a lie. You said your time's up. Are you done or not? No, are you done or not? You want to answer my questions? If you want my questions, go to the next person. This is ridiculous. What a mockery you are. You are the biggest mockery in the United States Senate and you're sitting next to ship. Yeah, well, eight million people in New Jersey don't think so. At least I didn't get my job the way you got your job. Are you going to interfere with Senator Graham asking her questions? I certainly will not. To as well. Are you done now? Are you ready to shut up? I am done, sir. More than two years after Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on President Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a new release of FBI records revealing previously undisclosed details about the gunman's contacts and the early investigation. The FBI publishing its eighth batch of files on Crooks, including interview summaries, evidence records and internal communications. Collected after the July 2024 assassination attempt. Journalist Tom Elliott reviewing the files, highlighting several encounters that he argues complicate the familiar portrait of Crooks as a loner who did virtually everything by himself. The most notable involving a gun store roughly 120 miles from Crooks' home. According to an FBI interview record cited by Elliott, Keystone Armory in Edinburgh contacted investigators after the shooting, to report that a man resembling Crooks had visited the store on May 25th, 2024. Employees reportedly describing the man as spending roughly an hour inside, accompanied by one man believed to be in his 30s and another older man with a gray beard. The customer purchasing 20 rounds of ammo, though not the same type Crooks used in the assassination attempt. After the July shooting, the store contacting the FBI and supplying investigators with its surveillance video. Elliott noting Crooks was scheduled to attend a firearms class elsewhere in Pennsylvania later that afternoon, making the timeline possible, though not conclusive. A separate FBI interview summary documenting another interaction one day before the assassination attempt. Officials at the Clareton Sportsman's Club telling investigators that surveillance video showed Crooks speaking with another man while the two men were alone on the rifle range, July 12th. Agents reportedly photographing the unidentified man and his vehicle from images held by a club official, then checking the names listed in the range's sign-in records. The release offering no public account of what investigators ultimately learned about that encounter. Other records revealing agents were searching for a third cell phone believed to be connected to Crooks. On July 21st, agents reportedly conducting a coordinated search of the wooded area and a nearby dumpster for what the document calls, quote, a phone believed to be associated with Thomas Crooks. Investigators also searching an apartment complex whose coordinates had been stored on one of Crooks' devices. By that point, investigators had already recovered Crooks' primary Samsung phone from his body. The evidence log also listing a second Samsung containing a year of calls and messages ending in July 2023. Elliott noting the separate search in the wooded area indicates agents believed Crooks had possessed a third device. Though he reports they found nothing. The FBI maintaining that Crooks acted alone, saying its investigation included more than 1,000 interviews, roughly 2,000 public tips, 100 subpoenas, and the examination of 13 electronic devices. Coming up, a wide-ranging White House briefing from Attorney General Todd Blanch, addressing AI and a potential investigation into actress Hayden Panettiere's death. And prosecutors ruling out the death penalty for Nick Reiner. Feeling sluggish, bloated, not quite like yourself? Life constantly bombards us with silent threats, processed foods, artificial light, nonstop stress, all of which can disrupt gut health, drain energy, and weaken immune health. When that happens, it's not that your body is broken, it's that it might be missing something. It's that you're missing the right inputs. This is why I want to tell you about Armra Cholestrum. It's packed with more than 400 bioactive nutrients that they say can work at a foundational level to fortify gut health, support immune health, fuel recovery, and promote whole body vitality. Strong gut integrity can support metabolism, skin and hair health, and even performance and recovery, which is why Cholestrum has long been valued by some elite athletes as well. If you are looking to take back control of your health from the inside out, consider Armra. We have a special deal for you. Go to armra.com/megan, or enter "Megan" to get 30% off your first subscription order. That's armra.com/megan. Attorney General Todd Blanch, hosting the White House press briefing from the Rose Garden yesterday, as the latest administration member to fill in for the vacant press secretary position. The briefing is spending some time on the hot topic of the week, AI. A.G. Blanch addressing what role the DOJ will play as the tech advances. - As far as AI is concerned, we have a lot of, there's a lot of criminal laws. And so if anybody associated with AI violates criminal law, we'll investigate that. We already have. There's plenty of cases involving AI that we've charged individuals. I do not think it's the job of the Department of Justice to regulate. We're prosecutors, not regulators. So we're not gonna try to regulate AI. AI is extraordinarily beneficial to our society. There's a lot of great ways to regulate AI. There's a lot of great work that AI does. And it's also something that conveniently has become a flashpoint this week. And the president spoke about that, and I very much agree with him. - The flashpoint erupting after some of the country's largest AI companies are now calling for lawmakers to regulate their own industry and slow their pace of development, warning of potentially catastrophic risks. President Trump branding the campaign a hoax, while critics question whether the industry's biggest players are using regulation to protect their position and board. He said, he's not sure what's going on in the world right now. - We've been talking about AI for a long time now. We've been talking about it for a long time. We've been talking about it for a long time now. after all, the tail doesn't wag the dog. The prosecutor has other considerations as well. Certain things like the practical effect of the decision. Will the death penalty ever be carried out if a jury were to impose it? And in California, the answer is almost certainly no. There's been a moratorium in place in California since March 13th, 2019, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. And that'll do it for your AM Update. I'm Megyn Kelly. Join me back here for the MK Show, live on SiriusXM's The Megyn Kelly Channel, 111 at New East, on youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly, and on all podcast platforms.