STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
If Donald Trump should win the presidency again, he will need people to govern with him. Many aides from his first term have turned against him, but we may learn something from those who remain ready to serve, like Kash Patel, who's talked about as a possible future official. Elaina Plott Calabro of The Atlantic profiled this official who rose quickly in the Trump administration.
ELAINA PLOTT CALABRO: Really, at his peak, he was chief of staff for the acting secretary of defense. But at the very end of the Trump administration - I mean, I'm talking, really, the final weeks - Trump was attempting to promote him to be deputy director of the CIA with the idea that he would remove Director Gina Haspel and then be able to promote Kash Patel to acting director without having to go through the hoops of Senate confirmation.
INSKEEP: Why did this man rise in government so quickly, and what made so many other people in government uneasy about him?
PLOTT CALABRO: He - to a degree that I really haven't seen from other people I've covered around Trump - was able to ingratiate himself to Trump himself. I was told that, just from the outset, he was focused on how to get more face time with Trump. One White House official from that time told me that Trump sort of looked at Kash Patel and said, I understand that he's the person that I could say to, I'm not telling you to break into the DNC, but wouldn't it be nice if that could happen?
INSKEEP: A man so loyal that even some Trump loyalists told Calabro they were disturbed. The journalist traced Patel's story back to his immigrant family on Long Island, the suburbs of New York City. He went to law school and became a public defender. He showed skill in the courtroom, although colleagues detected a kind of class resentment.
PLOTT CALABRO: He would often sort of make snide comments - well, you know, I'm not interested in this because I didn't go to a fancy school like all of you did.
INSKEEP: He moved on to the Federal Justice Department, was on a good career path and even got assignments overseas. And then Patel was called back from overseas to attend a court hearing in Texas and almost had to go straight from the airport to court without wearing a tie.
PLOTT CALABRO: This judge absolutely reams him out.
INSKEEP: You're disrespecting the court.
PLOTT CALABRO: You're not dressed appropriately. How dare you come into my court like this? And also, what are you even bringing to this case? I mean, really harsh stuff and really over the top, actually.
INSKEEP: This was widely seen as a racist attack on an Indian American. And afterward, Patel was unhappy that the Justice Department did not speak up.
PLOTT CALABRO: They did not publicly go over the top defending him. Colleagues of his from that time that I spoke to said he just couldn't get past it. And in his book, he even points to that moment as when he realized, sort of, you know, DOJ is willing to kind of protect Benghazi terrorists, but they wouldn't protect one of their own.
INSKEEP: You describe this as a humiliation, which is a meaningful word because I think often about how Trump practices the politics of humiliation - they're laughing at us. They're taking advantage of us. They're making fun of us. It sounds like Patel was very ready to hear that.
PLOTT CALABRO: Absolutely. I think that's such a great point, too. For Kash Patel, the Trump message - it's not just something he believes in ideologically, necessarily, at, like, a 30,000-foot level. It resonates with him quite personally. And so when we talk about a potential second Trump term and refer back to comments Trump has made about essentially exacting revenge on his enemies who wronged him in a first term, that is a very personal endeavor for Kash Patel.
INSKEEP: If Donald Trump were to win a second term as president, based on your reporting, what possible jobs would Patel be in line for?
PLOTT CALABRO: So you've had Donald Trump Jr. say on a podcast, you know, maybe we install Kash Patel as acting attorney general as a, quote, "shot across the bow to the Washington establishment." But I think the word acting is very important here.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
PLOTT CALABRO: So people around Trump and Trump himself - they understand that Kash Patel is rather unlikely to get confirmed to a position, like director of the CIA.
INSKEEP: Let's remind people - if you've got a top job, you have to go before the United States Senate.
PLOTT CALABRO: Exactly. Even if Republicans were to take the Senate, it is not expected to go well for Kash Patel. So the idea is that any major role he could play in the national security establishment would have to be something that does not require Senate confirmation and then eventually shuttled to the top job in an acting capacity. But I think the big takeaway is there is a sense on the far right and, you know, even among Trump himself that whatever position in which he installed Kash Patel, Kash Patel would be kind of leading the charge on this revenge tour, so to speak.
This is retribution for humiliations he felt he suffered in a first term. And in all the things I listen to about Kash Patel sort of endorsing this idea, it was never, here is how this will make the lives of the American people better. It was just, this is something that's coming, and they all deserve it.
INSKEEP: Elaina Plott Calabro of The Atlantic. Thanks for coming by.
PLOTT CALABRO: Thank you so much for having me.
INSKEEP: Now, we did reach out to Kash Patel himself for comment, but, through a spokesman, he declined to answer written questions. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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