FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly criticized subordinates in a tense Thursday morning meeting over their handling of the investigation into Charlie Kirk’s killer. 

More than 200 agents joined the online call, which was first reported by The New York Times. An official attending the meeting told the Times that Patel criticized the agency’s “Mickey Mouse operations,” saying it was one of the few times in the call that he wasn’t cursing. 

During the call, Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino emphasized the need to catch Kirk’s killer. Patel also criticized Salt Lake City agents for not providing him with a photo of the suspected killer until 12 hours later, the Times reported. 

Both Patel and Bongino flew to Utah on Thursday to personally oversee the investigation.

The FBI arrested Tyler Robinson, 22, the suspect in Kirk’s shooting, on Friday. According to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R), Robinson was apprehended after a family friend reached out to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, stating Robinson “confessed to” his family “or implied that he had committed the incident.”

Kirk was shot Wednesday at an event at Utah Valley University. Patel said in a Wednesday evening post on social platform X that the FBI had taken a “subject for the horrific shooting” into custody, only to later announce the subject had been released after being interrogated by law enforcement.

The Wednesday blunder has cost Patel. Several MAGA allies criticized the director over his leadership, casting doubt on whether he was the right person to head the FBI.

“He performed terribly in the last few days, and it’s not clear whether he has the operational expertise to investigate, infiltrate, and disrupt the violent movements—of whatever ideology—that threaten the peace in the United States,” conservative activist Chris Rufo wrote on X. 

Patel joined the FBI after a career as a federal prosecutor and Defense Department chief of staff. His lack of law enforcement experience led to some former GOP officials’ reservations against him stepping into the position.

Steve Bannon, a former Trump administration adviser, said he didn’t see the shooter’s apprehension as “great law enforcement work” speaking on his “Bannon’s War Room” show directly after the conference.

“I don’t know why Kash flew out there, you know, thousands of miles, to give us, ‘Hey, working partnerships and our great partnership in Utah’ — OK, got that,” Bannon said.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said he’s received threats over his Thursday statement urging the Trump administration to help cool the nation’s political temperature after the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

“My office has received an extraordinary number of violent and graphic threats yesterday and today from right-wing individuals online and over the phone—directed toward me, my family, and my staff—after I pointed out the simple fact that President Trump should join [House] Speaker [Mike] Johnson [R-La.] and other level-headed Republicans in condemning political violence, not inciting it further,” Moulton wrote in a Friday statement on social platform X, with a screenshot of hateful comments under his social media posts.

The Massachusetts Democrat said the “solution” to political disagreement in America is “never violence.” 

“It should be easy for everybody to say that,” he told his followers, urging GOP lawmakers to condemn violence “just as I and many other Democrats condemn violence by the left.”

Lawmakers across the aisle condemned the assassination of Kirk at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. Several high-level Democrats, including former Presidents Biden and Obama, also spoke out against the violence.

“We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children,” Obama wrote in a public statement.

President Trump, however, blamed the political left for the loss of Kirk in a Wednesday night video message from the Oval Office.

“Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died,” Trump told the public. 

Shortly after the shooting, GOP Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.) called on Trump to tone down his rhetoric.

“I think that’s ridiculous rhetoric,” Massie told The Hill. 

“It’s amusing,” he added. “It doesn’t offend me that he’s over the top with the rhetoric, but some people take it literally, and he should probably tone that down himself.”

Still, some Republican lawmakers, such as Rep. Nancy Mace (S.C.), have openly blamed those with differing political views for Kirk’s assassination.

“Democrats owned what happened today,” Mace told reporters outside the Capitol shortly after the news of the shooting broke. “Just because you speak your mind doesn’t mean you get shot.”

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) on Friday urged the public not to focus on the political alignment of the suspected Charlie Kirk shooter but to focus on mental well-being instead.

“What f****** difference does it make if this murderer was left or right. Pull yourself together, read a book, get some exercise, have a whiskey or walk the dog or make some pasta or go fishing or just do anything other than let this algo pickle your brain and ruin your soul,” Schatz posted on the social platform X.

He later quoted a post from Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R), who referred to social media as a “cancer.”

“I know this guy is a Republican and all but I swear you could win all the electoral votes with this message in 28,” Schatz wrote in a follow up post on X.

Online discourse has fermented with theories about the motive behind Kirk’s shooting and graphic footage of his death. 

Police said Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old resident of Utah, is being investigated as the alleged gunman in the fatal shooting of the Turning Point USA founder.

Prior to Kirk’s death, Robinson shared disdain for Kirk’s rhetoric with family members at dinner, according to law enforcement officers. 

Robinson is currently registered as an unaffiliated voter in Utah, but allegations about his political alignment has been publicly debated by Democrats and Republicans in recent days. 

“Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died,” Trump told the public on Wednesday. 

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker later addressed reporters telling them, “The president’s rhetoric often foments” violence in the country. 

However, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) condemned divisive statements blaming either party for recent threats against elected officials.

“If the left is going to blame the right, and the right is going to blame the left, and we’re going to continue to say ‘It’s your fault,’ and we’re not collectively going to try to bring it down together, then this cycle is just going to continue to go on,” he told Fox News Digital.

With inflation rising and hiring slowing, a dreaded word is back in the conversation: “stagflation.”

Widely seen as a nightmare economic scenario, it’s the rare double blow of rising prices and weak growth, squeezing consumers at the checkout line and in the job market.

“The whiff of stagflation is getting stronger,” Harvard economics professor Jason Furman wrote on the social media platform X Thursday. “There are no good options for the Fed given the set of circumstances we’re facing.”

Furman’s warning followed new Labor Department data showing consumer prices rose 2.9 percent in August from a year earlier, the fastest annual pace since January. At the same time, hiring has slowed sharply, and the unemployment rate — now 4.3 percent — is at its highest level in four years.

Those conditions have put Fed policymakers in a tough spot: ease interest rates to support the labor market or keep them higher for longer to bring inflation down to the 2 percent target.

It’s a version of the same dilemma that haunted monetary officials in the 1970s and early 1980s, when stagflation emerged, eventually driving both inflation and unemployment into double digits.

Today’s picture isn’t nearly as dire, and stagflation — if it comes back — could look different. Here’s what to know.

What is ‘stagflation’?

“Stagflation,” a mash-up of “stagnation” and “inflation,” describes the unusual situation where the economy stalls while the cost of living keeps surging.

It’s uncommon because it defies conventional economic logic: a slowing economy typically cools demand, which helps keep prices in check. Stagflation flips that script — costs rise even as growth sputters.

The term itself was coined in 1965 by British politician Iain Macleod, who described it as “the worst of both worlds.”

Roughly a decade later, Americans became familiar with the concept when inflation ran above 9 percent and unemployment hovered near that level in 1975. Several factors drove the spike, but a series of oil price shocks and loose monetary policy were key drivers, and the problem lingered for years.

Today’s 2.9 percent inflation and 4.3 percent unemployment look tame by comparison, but both are currently trending the wrong way, tying the Fed’s hands.

There’s no clear line for when stagflation starts, and it’s possible the U.S. could see a milder version that never reaches the extremes of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Why is stagflation a concern?

Stagflation hurts consumers by straining wallets when times are already tough, and it’s a headache for the Fed because it’s so hard to fight.

Policymakers have two main goals: maximum employment and stable prices, but stagflation pits them against each other.

Normally, the Fed hikes interest rates to tame inflation and cuts them to fight job losses, but when both problems flare at once, there’s no simple playbook.

In April, Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned that President Trump’s new tariffs were “significantly larger than expected” with likely effects that included “higher inflation and slower growth” — a recipe for stagflation.

Since then, inflation has ticked up, and the job market has softened, with the economy shedding positions in June for the first time in 4.5 years. Separate data released this week showed the labor market has been weaker than previously thought for some time, even before Trump took office.

The Fed is expected to cut rates at its meeting next week, a move to shore up jobs even though inflation is still running above its 2 percent goal.

“The harder question they’re going to start debating: How much conviction do they really have to keep cutting, as inflation inches further away from target?” Bankrate analyst Sarah Foster wrote in a note Thursday, warning of stagflation risks.

Why stagflation may look different this time

Stagflation could return, but that doesn’t mean it will be as severe — or last as long — as it did decades ago.

A recent Fidelity Viewpoints piece, “Stagflation: Not the 1970s,” argued that several of the forces behind the past crisis, such as oil supply shocks and union-driven wage inflation, aren’t in play today.

“We believe that while things aren’t perfect, they’re hardly bad, and the economy is still expanding,” Bradford Pineault of Fidelity’s Capital Markets Group said.

Inflation has risen since Trump’s April tariff announcements but so far not with the sharp spike many economists feared. In August, Powell suggested the effect of tariffs on inflation could be relatively short-lived, a view he called a “reasonable base case.”

Unemployment has crept up to 4.3 percent, and outside of health care, job seekers are having a hard time. But the 10 percent levels of the early 1980s are still a long way off.

The eventual result could be a kind of “stagflation-lite,” with inflation lingering above the Fed’s 2 percent target without spiking, while growth loses momentum. That’s hardly good news, but it’s better than the worst-case scenario.

“Full-blown stagflation is rare and likely to stay that way,” Chengjun Chris Wu, vice president and senior portfolio manager at Federated Hermes, wrote in an August blog post.

Charlie Kirk’s widow on Friday said she will work to preserve the legacy of the conservative activist and carry on the mission of Turning Point USA.

“To everyone listening tonight across America, the movement my husband built will not die. It won’t. I refuse to let that happen. It will not die,” Erika Kirk said in a Friday night livestream, making her first public comments since her husband’s death.

“All of us will refuse to let that happen,” she continued. ” No one will ever forget my husband’s name, and I will make sure of it.”

Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on Wednesday in Utah. On Friday, state and federal law enforcement identified the suspected shooter as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson.

Turning Point USA, a high school and college conservative nonprofit, was founded by Charlie Kirk in 2012. During the decade since, Kirk became a leading right-wing commentator.

After Kirk’s assassination President Trump, Vice President Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) all shared personal memories of Kirk as a champion on the campaign trail and a closed door adviser.

Erika Kirk said Friday her husband was a “martyr” for the nation and pledged to expand Turning Point USA in his honor.

“I promise I’ll make Turning Point the biggest thing this nation has ever seen,” Erika said during the livestream. “I promise Charlie.”

The non-profit hosts a watch list to identifying professors who “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the class-room,” and also backs student government candidates.

Kirk frequently traveled to campuses across the country to debate students with opposing political views. He was speaking to a group at Utah Valley University when he was shot this week.