On MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone explains Kash Patel’s plans to turn the FBI into “an instrument of political revenge”
Carusone: “He's so internalized the narrative that he also believes the ends justifies the means”
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From the December 13, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): Angelo, anyone who read through -- as I know you did over the summer and, Andrew, I know you did, too -- the FBI section of Project 2025, knows that the reception of Kash Patel in Republican circles, it would be more surprising if he was not well-received, that the plans for the FBI in the pages of Project 2025 are some of the most radical and some of the most explicit.
ANGELO CARUSONE (GUEST): Yeah, that's for sure. I mean, he has really internalized the narrative that there's a deep state. At the center of that deep state is the FBI, as an instrument of revenge and investigations. And so, it needs to be -- you need to go in there and first break it. And then the second part, which I think -- there's a lot of focus on this idea he's going to break it, and that's part of his intention -- but the second part is what you alluded to when you referenced Project 2025, which is that, after you break it, when you reconstitute it, what do you turn it to into? And you turn it into an instrument of political revenge and power. And that's ultimately what Kash Patel is sort of an avatar for, is that sort of world view.
And the part about it that I find so disturbing that oftentimes gets lost because of, you know, there's so much discussion about what he represents and what he's going to do, is that there's another ingredient to Patel beyond his world view. And that's that he's so internalized the narrative that he also believes the ends justifies the means. Meaning he believes so much of the right-wing's deep state narrative over the past eight years, that he's -- based on his own discussions -- that he's willing to break rules, bend rules, do things that are totally out of bounds, because that's necessary in this moment to restore justice. And that's the part that's so troubling to me, because, there's this plan, and then he also then has the will and the rationale for how you go ahead and implement and execute that plan.
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WALLACE: What is the -- I mean, Angelo, the pledge to root out the corruption atop an agency led by Chris Christie's former defense attorney and Donald Trump's handpicked replacement for Jim Comey, it means what? To root out -- who are we rooting out and getting rid of? It's been run by a series of Republican men. I mean, what is the allegation of corruption rooted in?
CARUSONE: I mean, it starts all the way back to 2017, and really, you know, this idea of a deep state, it had been percolating in the far-right fever swamps, but really Fox News kind of plucked it and turned it into a narrative, that actually now, as you noted when you were talking earlier, is sort of just an accepted norm in the halls of the Senate. Eight years ago, that was like a weird, random, radical thing. Yeah, people talked about it, it got some online attention. But then Hannity sort of picked it up, Fox News did, and then Tucker Carlson really refined it. And when you actually look at what the ingredients of that are, it gets to the answer of your question, which is, who are they really referring to?
What they're really referring to is basically anyone who was doing their job without -- in a vacuum and focused on the job itself. So the norms, the rules, the process, the experts. So anyone that really is an expert -- anyone that was part of the status quo and that wasn't aligned with their world view.
And in particular, in practice, what does that mean? It means, anyone that put up any kind of resistance to orders or instructions or guidance in the first Trump administration that, you know, that because those instructions either were out of bounds or not acceptable or just not a good use of resources. Anyone that was seen as sort of holding the line is exactly what they're referring to.
And that's the part that I find so troubling about even this conversation -- not this one but the fact that we even have to have it -- is that Trump announced Kash Patel as an appointee as if that's a normal thing. And Christopher Wray resigned, instead of being fired as if that's a normal thing. That's not normal. Part of the reason why the term is set to be ten years is to avoid exactly this even possibility, this very prospect.
And so, part of what they're trying to do now is get people to self-select, to quit. And Christopher Wray just passed -- he sort of paved the way. He set an example. So, what does it mean? It means anyone -- you know, we talked a lot about this over the summer that in the first Trump administration, there were people directly around Trump that were saying, "Wait, that's not okay, that's out of bounds." This is how you sort of get close to an acceptable policy. But there was more than just five people at the highest levels that were doing that kind of work. There were people that do that work every single day, regardless of who the president is, that sort of help make things work. And those are the people that they're focused in on. That's why they have a database of 11,000 people, where the first level of whether or not you're going to be in or out is your loyalty to the larger MAGA movement, because that's the first qualifier here. Expertise is no longer a valid criteria. It's about loyalty and it's about sort of smashing the status quo to implement this new world view.
We are in the process of a massive transformative change. And that's what I find so sad and disheartening about the Senate saying, "Yeah." It's less actually about how they view Patel -- although that's important -- it's that they've actually accepted a radical overhaul of what has been a very important part of our justice system, almost overnight.