FBI Director Kash Patel and his 27-year-old girlfriend are catching grief for appearing on a podcast to discuss, among other things, first concerts and favorite musicians, which aired just as his agency was in the thick of a manhunt for the Brown University mass shooter.

“What IQ do you have to have to be the director of the FBI and agree to this interview?” the co-host of Breaking Points, Saagar Enjeti, said on X. 

Indeed, Mr. Patel’s appearance on the Katie Miller Podcast, which was filmed last week and aired on Tuesday evening, did little to quell the intense level of scrutiny the 45-year-old has faced in recent months, including his mandated use of a private government jet and his tendency to live-blog sensitive FBI investigations on his social media accounts. 

Katie Miller, wife of White House advisor Stephen Miller, made that timing known in capital letters in the episode’s opening, specifying that it was filmed before the murders of two Brown University students in Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday.

Mr. Patel was criticized for touting on social media that a suspect in the Brown University shooting had been detained, only for that suspect to be released a short while later. Mr. Patel had made a similar announcement during the early stages of the FBI’s investigation into the Charlie Kirk assassination, which he was also forced to walk back.

Despite facing questions about his ability to handle the job as FBI director, Mr. Patel sat on a plush sofa alongside his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, and said his life today “has never been better for me on a personal level.”

“Of course, I wish we didn’t have to deal with the attacks,” Mr. Patel added.

Those “attacks” include rumors of Ms. Wilkins being an Israeli “honeypot,” which has been amplified by right-wing personalities on social media. She has since responded with three lawsuits against three such individuals. 

Other attacks include reports of his frequent — and again, mandated — use of the private jet for personal trips that include seeing his girlfriend in Nashville, Tennessee, where she lives. Mr. Patel also reportedly ordered members of an FBI SWAT team to act as her security detail, at one point being asked to drive Ms. Wilkins’s drunk friend home, the latter of which an FBI spokesman called “hogwash.” Since her boyfriend became the FBI’s ninth director in February,  Ms. Wilkins has been subject to many violent and sexually graphic online threats. 

Mr. Patel told Ms. Miller that there were “many current investigations into people that have threatened her life.”

Ms. Wilkins used the podcast to confirm that she was neither a Mossad spy nor Jewish — in fact, she said she had never been to Israel.  

As for his use of a government jet,  Mr. Patel said he abides by rules set by Congress: as director, he is mandated to fly on planes equipped with secure communications technology and must reimburse the government for the cost of a commercial ticket when the plane is used for personal travel.

He told Ms. Miller that he anticipated the “scrutiny” he would face for using the jet and took additional steps to save the FBI money, which included requiring the bureau to fly in and out of government air strips like Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. 

“The prior two directors didn’t. They didn’t want to drive an extra 20 minutes to a government airfield like Andrews. They wanted to use Reagan as their, you know, personal landing strip,” Mr. Patel said, referring to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. 

Much of the podcast focused on the couple’s relationship. They discussed how they first met — at mutual friend John Rich’s Nashville home — and shared their first impressions of one another (he said he complimented her jacket, she walked off).  Ms. Wilkins said her first-ever concert was Journey. Mr. Patel admitted to being a die-hard fan of George Straight (“100 percent, all day long”). 

Yet one question lingered: Why release this podcast now, just days after a double homicide that triggered a national manhunt, let alone agree to it in the first place?

Ms. Miller did not respond to questions from the Sun. An FBI spokesperson declined to comment. 

An FBI insider tells the Sun that many in his circle were not expecting Ms. Miller to release the podcast in the middle of a manhunt. The podcast was largely Ms. Miller’s initiative;  she had recorded similar episodes featuring  Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth and his wife, Jen Hegseth, as well as Speaker Mike Johynson and his wife, Kelly, in a separate episode. 

The situation echoed a previous controversy in October, when Ms. Wilkins posted photos of herself and Mr. Patel at a Pennsylvania wrestling event — to which they had flown on the FBI’s jet during the government shutdown.. The two of them technically did nothing illegal. But their decisions resulted in bad optics.

“When I first did an investigation of consequence, you know, Benghazi or Russia or what have you, they always said it’s going to be the loudest when you’re over the target,” Mr. Patel told Ms. Miller. 

He added: “And yeah, it’s been the loudest for us in recent history.”