MSNBC’s Jen Psaki and Lawrence O’Donnell couldn’t resist taking a few playful shots at Trump-appointed FBI Director Kash Patel after his rough day on Capitol Hill, reported by Mediaite. Patel faced bipartisan criticism during a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing over his handling of the Charlie Kirk murder investigation. But what caught O’Donnell’s eye wasn’t just Patel’s testimony—it was his tie.
During Tuesday night’s handoff between their shows, O’Donnell asked Psaki for her judgment. “I might be being too picky about something that I noticed today,” O’Donnell said, noting Patel became the first FBI director in history to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee with a tie that wasn’t properly fastened. He joked that even J. Edgar Hoover, who was famously strict about FBI dress codes, would never have tolerated something like that.
“An FBI director is supposed to be someone with a real sensitivity to detail,” O’Donnell said. “And how does he miss what his tie looks like, and how does he miss that it’s the only necktie in the room that looks like that?”
Psaki didn’t let Patel off the hook either. “Remember, just to let him give him a little ease, he was wearing versions of muscle tees on a podcast a year ago, Lawrence,” she quipped, adding that maybe Patel was still adjusting to professional attire.
The back-and-forth quickly turned into a two-minute roast. O’Donnell pressed Psaki to imagine either of the presidents she worked for—Barack Obama or Joe Biden—ever showing up in public with a crooked tie. She shook her head and reminded viewers of the “tan suit scandal,” saying if a tie mishap had happened under her former bosses, it would have been treated as a national crisis.
“There’s a lot of things to feel perplexed about,” Psaki added, pointing not just to Patel’s tie but also to his appearances on conservative media outlets before such a high-stakes hearing.
O’Donnell admitted he just needed someone to validate his irritation. “You’re not too picky,” Psaki reassured him with a smile. The pair wrapped up the exchange with O’Donnell thanking Psaki for humoring him, even though he suspected she would have sided with him anyway.
The lighthearted moment gave MSNBC viewers a chance to laugh after a tense day of testimony. While Patel’s answers on the Kirk investigation drew serious fire from lawmakers, his tie mishap became late-night fodder for cable news. Psaki and O’Donnell made clear they weren’t only critiquing his fashion sense—they were pointing to what they saw as a lack of attention to detail from a man expected to run the nation’s top law enforcement agency.