Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel detailed the agency’s major victories cracking down on violent crime, as well as the Trump administration’s aggressive pursuit of fraud, during an interview with Breitbart News Saturday.
Patel emphasized that President Donald Trump’s “back the blue” attitude, combined with sending agents out into the field and prioritizing partnerships with local sheriffs’ offices and departments, has emboldened law enforcement around the nation to pursue justice more forcefully. Host and Breitbart D.C. bureau chief Matthew Boyle pointed to a 125-year-low in the murder rate in major U.S. cities, as well as a 200-percent increase in the number of FBI arrests in 2025.
“First and foremost, you need a commander in chief who’s going to back the blue — and that’s what we have with President Trump. He delivered us the resources and gave us a mandate to get rid of the bureaucratic handcuffs and let good cops be cops,” Patel told Boyle. “And that’s what we did. I took one thousand agents that were stationed in the National Capital Region last year, that means the D.C. area, and I moved them out to the field permanently. That means every single state in the country got a plus up in federal law enforcement personnel from the FBI to go out there and crush violent crime and defend the homeland.”
“That’s why we saw 112-percent increase in violent crime arrests by the FBI alone year-over-year. But as you pointed out, the homicide rates dropped 20 points and the robbery rates also dropped 20 points — both historic lows. That’s how you do it: You let the agents out in the field. You give them the support they need in the field, not the bureaucracy in D.C., and that’s how you get stuff done. That’s how you go out there and capture seven of “Top 10 Most Wanted” fugitives in the world in 13 months.”
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The manifestation of support for law enforcement — compared to the soft-on-crime Biden administration — can be seen in lowered line-of-duty deaths, as well as an increase in arrests for assaults on federal officers, Patel said, after Boyle pointed to 17-percent reduction in line-of-duty deaths for police officers year-over-year, from 64 in the final year of the Biden presidency to 53 in 2025.
Patel called the decrease “great” but added that “one line-of-duty death is one too many.”
“Police officers and sheriffs’ departments around the country are saying they’ve never felt as much support from the FBI as they have since President Trump came back into office,” he said. “And I think that’s green-lit officers to work with work ,with the feds, and make sure that they know that we’re going to safeguard them as much as we can when we ask them to go out there and do this dangerous job.”
When asked about the threefold increase of arrests for assaults on federal officers, Patel said anyone who impedes or strikes a law enforcement officer “is going to face the full force of law enforcement.”
“The FBI is going to back our partners in law enforcement across this country, and for any criminal that’s willing to engage or thinks that they can engage and hit or strike or impede law enforcement is going to face the full force of law enforcement. And that’s why the arrest numbers are up,” Patel said. “We’re not saying that you can’t go out there and peacefully protest. We are simply saying, you strike a police officer doing his lawful duty—you cannot interfere with him in his lawful execution of his lawful duty.”
Earlier this year, Boyle reported that the FBI made 67,000 arrests in 2025—specifically from January 20, 2025, to January 20, 2026—versus just 22,500 in 2024, or January 20, 2024, to January 20, 2025. Patel said the shocking increase shows that “crime was out of control under the prior administration.”
READ MORE: Exclusive — FBI Arrests Surged Nearly 200 Percent in 2025
“Because for us, for the FBI to have to do that amount of work in one single year — America should never be put under that kind of security crisis,” he said, adding that the Trump administration’s pro-law enforcement policy enabled the FBI to “disrupt 1,800 criminal gangs — a 210 percent increase…and pick up enough fentanyl to kill 178 million Americans — a 31 percent increase year-over-year.”
“These are the violent criminals. They’re looking to harm our children, our youth, and our communities…Predators online: we’ve seen an arrest uptick of 500 percent of the nihilistic violent extremists that wish to do harm to our children online. Our agents are motivated more than ever, and they’re out there capturing criminals, not just on the streets, but in the cyber realm, and not just in the U.S., but overseas” he said. “We’ve seen a 43 percent increase in arrests of espionage actors from Iran, China, Russia, and [North Korea]. So the FBI is fully globally equipped, and that’s what we’ve been doing. That’s why you’ve seen such a rise in numbers: because the Biden administration let tons of criminals in and also was very lax on crime fighting, and we are not taking that position.”
Patel also discussed the FBI’s ruthless pursuit of criminals on the agency’s “Most Wanted” list under President Trump.
“Just to put this in perspective, President Biden and his FBI took four of the “Most Wanted Top 10″ FBI fugitives off the list in four years. We’re at seven in 13 months, and this is the worst of the worst,” Patel said. “We’re talking gang bangers, we’re talking child rapists, we’re talking murderers, we’re talking narcotraffickers like Ryan Wedding, the Canadian Olympic snowboarder, who we went down to Mexico and literally picked up ourselves and captured.”
“What it shows America, is how powerful and how never-ending the search is going to be. These seven individuals have been on the run for 60 collective years, 60 collective years, and we got ’em all,” he continued. “And we’re not done. We’re going to keep reloading that list, and we’re going to get everybody.”
RELATED: Fugitive Murder Suspect Arrested in Mexico 70 Minutes After Being Added to FBI Most Wanted List
One of the top priorities is tackling the rampant abuse of taxpayer dollars through massive fraud schemes, an initiative being overseen by Vice President JD Vance. Boyle pointed to the suspension of 221 hospice and home health providers in California and several arrested for more than $50 million in fraud this past week.
“It’s a great initiative by the vice president, and the FBI led on those arrests that you just talked about in California with a $50 million fraud takedown this past weekend. Just last summer, I was in Minnesota when we were successful in the FBI to arrest, I think 55 individuals responsible for the Feeding Our Future fraud — a $250 million fraud campaign,” Patel said.
“What we’re doing with President Trump’s leadership and JD Vance’s leadership on this task force is the FBI is prioritizing fraud investigations around the country. Because any type of government corruption and fraud is too much, and it robs the American people of precious treasure,” he added. “So we’ve got hundreds of investigations going on that have been going on, and we’re not going to stop because someone becomes a target and they are an elected official or a private citizen. It doesn’t matter to us.”
“I think in the very near future, now that we have the AAG [Assistant Attorney General] for fraud in place, you’re going to start seeing a lot of fraud arrests by this FBI — a lot more than we’ve been doing,” he continued.
Patel said any American can help fight crime by reporting tips to 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324).
“No tip is too small, and the American public–just from me as the FBI director to you, we’re very thankful for the tips you send us and the information you send us. It helps us solve cases on a daily basis, so please keep doing it. You’re an invaluable partner,” he said.
Patel also broke his silence on President Trump’s decision Thursday to replace Pam Bondi as Attorney General with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as acting AG.
“I think Attorney General Pam Bondi did a great job leading the crime fight reduction across the country,” he said. “Like anything else in Washington, DC, we’re here to serve at the pleasure of the president. We’ll continue to give him everything we have, and I’m confident in the team going forward.”
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
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