A Nevadan could be President Donald Trump's FBI director – though he'll have to win Senate confirmation in order to take the reins.

Kash Patel, an outspoken Trump acolyte and the president's pick for the 10-year FBI appointment, is a Las Vegas resident who has taken an active role in Nevada Republican politics.

"He really wove himself into the community," said Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald, who called Patel an "integral part of the Nevada Republican Party."

Patel, 44, has been a frequent face at Republican campaign events over the last couple of years in the Silver State, from advocating for Adam Laxalt in his 2022 Senate bid to supporting GOP candidates in constitutional races.

He participated in the party's state meeting in Stateline last year, attended a Lincoln Day dinner for the Clark County Republican Party and helped with grassroots organizing for the presidential caucus the Nevada GOP held, according to Sigal Chattah, Nevada's RNC national committeewoman.

"He loves Nevada," she said. "He's always been involved since he moved here with the party politics."

Patel has also spoken at party fundraisers, and he helped McDonald with youth get-out-the-vote efforts at high schools and colleges, the Nevada GOP chairman said. At Nevada events, Patel has criticized FBI leadership and promoted claims of the weaponization of intelligence communities.

In a 2023 video he filmed for the ReAwaken America tour, an event that featured speakers including Alex Jones and Mike Lindell that was held in Las Vegas, Patel discussed the "corruption of the deep state" and Hunter Biden. He suggested Congress should impeach people like former Attorney General Merrick Garland and former FBI Director Christopher Wray, and needs to shut off specific routes of funding to the DOJ and the FBI.

"We have to get Congress to give us the ammunition and the receipts of corruption that we now know exists in the FBI, and at DOJ and in the halls of the intelligence community," he said in the video.

At an October 2024 rally in Las Vegas, Patel reiterated his goal of demolishing the "deep state" and removing Diversity, Equality and Inclusion initiatives from the military. He also furthered false claims of a stolen election in 2020 and claimed there was a disinformation campaign on the Jan. 6 insurrection.

From public defender to Defense Department official

Patel was born in New York and began his career as a public defender and went on to serve as a terrorism prosecutor at the Department of Justice and a liason officer with counterterrorism units before joining the National Security Council, where he served several roles including overseing the operations of 17 intelligence community agencies and provided the president's daily briefing, according to a biography on a Department of Defense website. It said he served as chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller.

His nomination has been met with opposition from some Democrats, including Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Il., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"Kash Patel has neither the experience, the temperament, nor the judgment to lead the FBI," Durbin wrote in a statement.

Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto's office said she will review his qualifications as with all other nominees, and a spokesperson for Sen. Jacky Rosen said she opposes Patel's nomination.

Nevada Republican officials, however, have applauded Trump's selection.

Chattah thinks Patel is an "amazing" pick for FBI director due to his experience as both a public defender and a national security prosecutor.

"It's a huge asset just because when you're a prosecutor, your goal is to keep bad guys off the street," she said. "When you're a public defender, your goal is essentially to make sure that the government proves their case beyond a reasonable doubt."

'He's a common man'

McDonald said Patel does not play favorites. If someone is a bad actor, whether they're a Republican or a Democrat, he will prosecute them, he said.

"He's a common man that will represent the working men and women of this nation, and that's what we need right now," he said.

Trump's selection of Patel further shows the role Nevada has taken and sets a "strong precedent" that great candidates are found not just from the coasts of the country, McDonald said.

"I think picking Kash only highlights the importance of allowing Nevada to assume a role on the national stage," McDonald said.

Reprinted with permission from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

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GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump continued to denounce the influx of immigrants into the country at a rally in Las Vegas, just days after the first and possibly only presidential debate between him and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Friday's rally at the Expo at World Market Center was his first rally in Las Vegas since Harris became his opponent, and he attacked his new opponent at length.

"Get everyone you know to vote," he told the crowd during his fourth visit to Nevada this year. "We want a landslide that is too big to rig. On Nov. 5, we will save America. We will rescue our middle class. We will restore our borders like they have not been restored in a long time. We will put America first and we will take back our country."

Speaking for over an hour, Trump hit the major issues of his campaign, from immigration to the economy, as well as going on unscripted tangents, from President Joe Biden wearing a MAGA hat to the debate moderators whom he called fake.

1. He hit heavily on immigration.

With immigration one of voters' biggest issues and a sore political spot for the Biden-Harris administration, which rolled back Trump-era immigration policies, the former president continued to highlight problems at the border and repeated anti-immigrant rhetoric about immigrants causing crime and "destroying our country."

Trump said there are millions of immigrants invading the country, coming from prisons and mental institutions, and talked about Venezuelan gangs taking over apartments in Colorado and Haitian immigrants taking over Springfield, Ohio. He did not repeat the debunked claim he made during the debate that Haitian immigrants were eating people's pets.

Aurora, Colorado, police arrested 10 alleged members of a criminal organization from Venezuela in different incidents dating back to February, according to a Facebook post shared by the department on Wednesday.

"Our country is under invasion just like an army," he said.

A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that immigrants are 60 percent less likely to commit a crime than people born in the US

The campaign showed AI-generated images claiming the dangers of immigrants that said a girl was raped by an illegal immigrant. He also showed a slide of a chart showing the number of immigrants entering the country, a slide he had turned to look at during the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally as he was shot.

"Kamala will be the president of invasion, and I will be the president of making this country stronger, more beautiful," he said.

2. He made promises on the economy.

Trump described further his economic plans, including his proposal to end taxes on overtime pay, which he announced the day before. He also pledged to end taxes on Social Security, receiving a loud cheer from the crowd.

When he visited Las Vegas in June, he announced his plans to end taxes on tips, which other political candidates signed onto, as well, including Kamala Harris and Nevada Democrats, though with an additional call to raise the national minimum wage.

He said he'd open up federal land for housing to help alleviate the housing crisis. And said he'd turn the US into a manufacturing superpower.

Francine Lipman, a tax law expert at UNLV's William S. Boyd School of Law, said the proposal looks good on surface, but it would have negative consequences.

Lipman said it would encourage higher income individuals to structure their income and wealth in a way to be listed as an hourly worker and receive more overtime, which could result in much less income tax. The proposal also could incentivize employers to pay their employees less or not increase their wages because they no longer get taxed on overtime, Lipman said.

"It is just not grounded in reality," she said. A CEO could say they make $15 an hour plus $30 million in overtime, she said.

"If we eliminate overtime from being taxed, and we also let employers dictate what overtime is, then everything will be overtime so that individuals are not going to pay taxes," Lipman said.

Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald said the policy would put money back in people's pockets and give them an opportunity to spend it.

"What Donald Trump's doing right now, our push right now for our plan, it helps, it puts money right back in the pockets of the working man," McDonald said.

3. He criticizes Harris and the debate moderators.

Just days after the first and potentially only presidential debate between him and Harris, Trump took to the stage to criticize the debate moderators and Harris, who he said lied often.

He criticized the moderators for fact-checking him and said they did not fact-check Harris. He denied that he was wrong when ABC News moderator David Muir fact-checked Trump about violent crime being up.

He said Harris is "all talk and no action," and claimed she lied about working in McDonald's. He criticized her for continuing to bring up Project 2025, which he's "said 100 times" that he knows nothing about it.

Trump showed video of Harris flip-flopping on some issues, including her saying during her 2019 presidential campaign that she wants to ban fracking and then in July saying she no longer supports that policy. He also showed a video montage of Harris laughing and thanking people on stage, calling her "unwell."

"Thirty-eight times she said thank you. There's something wrong with her," he said.

4. He name-dropped GOP candidates on the ballot.

The former president talked about Nevada's senate race in which Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen faces Republican Sam Brown, who he called an "incredible guy."

"He's given up so much," Trump said. "Nobody's given up like he's given up. He wants to do this because he loves his country," Trump said.

Trump called Rosen radical and invited Brown on stage, who gave a short speech and handed Trump a copy of his memoir, "Alive Day: Finding Hope and Purpose after Losing Everything."

He also mentioned John Lee and Drew Johnson, who are going up against Democratic incumbents Rep. Steven Horsford and Susie Lee. Trump did not name-drop Mark Robertson, who is running against Rep. Dina Titus.

Brown, who has lagged behind Rosen in the polls, told the Review-Journal before Trump took stage that he's on the ground every day to get his campaign going.

"I'm just working hard. I do the same thing every single day. It's this meeting with Nevadans, it's focusing on the issues, it's talking about what our solutions are," he said. "At the end of the day, the polls don't matter, how money is raised or spent doesn't matter. It's who has the most votes. We're on a trajectory to take the lead and win."

5. Supporters' enthusiasm is clear.

Around 6,000 people signed up to attend the rally, according to the campaign.

Rallygoers lined up to get in, wearing their patriotic and also eclectic attire, including T-shirts saying "I'm voting for the felon" and pictures of Hulk Hogan ripping his shirt off and of Trump raising his fist after his assassination attempt. A tent outside the venue had a line of people signing up to volunteer for the campaign, and vendors sold Trump and MAGA swag. Inside the center, they often chanted "USA" and "fight," which Trump had shouted when he was shot.

Kayla Smith, 32, attended her first Trump rally on Friday.

"I really wanted to experience it, and plus Kamala told us to do so during the debate so might as well take some advice and see what the rally is all about," the Las Vegas resident said.

Smith said she's nervous and excited about the election and said things need to change. She said she was able to purchase two homes, refinance one and sell the other while he was president.

"I noticed things were a lot better when I had him as president," she said.

She wants a strong economy, she supports tariffs imposed on countries. She wants a safer America and said Trump is the only president to talk about sex trafficking, which she said is one of her biggest concerns.

Samuel Farfaglio, a 31-year-old Las Vegas resident, likes Trump's policies and is interested in Trump's calls for tariffs. He also agrees with Trump' policies on military spending and drilling for more oil in the country.

"I think we're in a pretty pivotal time in this country where I think that the only thing that will stop us from a potential decline is good policy, both in our states and with foreign affairs," Farfaglio said.

"I don't think that he's a perfect human. I don't care," Farfaglio said. "I just care that the things that he says make far more sense than almost all the other candidates."

Reprinted with permission from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

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Former President Donald Trump, who recently announced his 2024 presidential bid, will likely face some tough Republican challengers if the Republican Jewish Coalition's Annual Leadership Meeting at The Venetian this weekend was any indication.

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Although the 2022 midterms are not over – with states still canvassing votes and Georgia's US Senate race scheduled for a runoff in December – Democrats and Republicans have started preparing for the 2024 presidential elections.

Republican figureheads toying with the idea of running against Trump spoke to hundreds of attendees this weekend about their visions for the country, the importance of the country's alliance with Israel and how the Republican Party can be more successful in future elections.

Some of Trump's potential challengers took swings at the former president – such as that he tweeted too much as president or touted false claims of election fraud – and received cheering, applause and standing ovations from the crowd, signaling a different path some Republicans want to take with the party's leadership in 2024.

Rather than criticizing his potential opponents, Trump, speaking via livestream Saturday, highlighted his accomplishments to help the Jewish community, including opening an American embassy in Jerusalem, withdrawing from the nuclear deal with Iran and signing the Abraham Accords to create peace.

"Under my administration we fought for Israel and the Jewish community like no president in history," Trump said, receiving a standing ovation from the audience.

"We better hope that a certain person wins the election in 2024," said Trump, who also touted false claims that the 2020 election was "rigged" against him.

He also stressed that he was "proud to be the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House," and added that President Joe Biden has "betrayed Israel and the Jewish community." He then declared that, if re-elected in 2024, the United States will "stand with" the Jewish state "once again."

Big names such as Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, Kevin McCarthy, Chris Christie and Mike Pence appeared in person. On Friday, speakers included Pence, Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland.

Trump was the "pil" in the room, meaning "elephant" in Hebrew, said Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush and current media consultant and political aide. As a former president, he has a lot of strength, Fleischer said, but a lot of people are still "shopping" for what kind of candidate they want to run for president in 2024.

"People are open-minded. People might change their minds a couple of times. They want to shop. Which again is great for democracy," Fleischer said.

But very few candidates will have the courage to take on Trump, Fleischer said.

"It is possible to beat Donald Trump, it is also possible to lose to Donald Trump. If there's five, six, seven real conservative-outsider candidates, Donald Trump will win the plurality. If there's only one, two, it's a fair fight," said Fleischer.

Push for 'party of we,' not 'party of me'

Former New Jersey Gov. Christie, who is considering another run for president, talked about how he was the first candidate to leave the presidential campaign in 2016 and endorse Trump, and he worked hard to make the Trump presidency as successful as possible. But he stopped supporting Trump in 2020, he said, receiving a lot of applause from the audience.

When Trump told the American people that the election was stolen with no evidence, "That's where it ended for me," Christie said. For every moment since then, "our party has been diminished by that lack of leadership."

Trump had said the party will keep winning so much that it will get tired of winning, Christie said, but "since that night in 2016, politically as a party, we've done nothing but lose."

Christie urged the audience to pick a leader who will make the Republican Party the "party of we" instead of the "party of me."

"We keep losing and losing and losing. And the fact of the matter is, the reason we're losing is because Donald Trump has put himself before everybody else," Christie said.

"I choose a party steeped in conservatism," Christie said, with principles of "strength, faith, decency, integrity, freedom, liberty and to make sure that we have a country that we bring together, not a country that we tear apart around those principles."

'Think, fight, persuade and mobilize'

In order for the Republican Party to win, it must "think, fight, persuade and mobilize," voters, said Texas US Sen. Ted Cruz. It should also take a move from the Democrats' playbook in energizing its base while attracting new voters.

"They went hard left, they energized their base, they govern as left-wing lunatics, and their voters rewarded them by showing up in big numbers," Cruz said.

The party also needs to stop "preaching to the choir" and attract young, Hispanic and Black voters, he said.

Cruz asked the crowd to take out their phones and subscribe to his podcast called Verdict, before clarifying those who could use their phones, since many Jewish people who strictly observe the Sabbath refrain from using electrical devices then.

Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina and another potential presidential candidate in 2024, rallied the crowd when he encouraged them to stand against antisemitism.

"Will you rise with me and fight against antisemitism wherever it raises its ugly head?" Scott said.

Scott talked about his accomplishments in battling antisemitism, such as introducing the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act and working with Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen to launch the Senate Caucus on Black-Jewish Relations.

"If we are going to be a great nation, we must first be a good nation," Scott said, and one of the ways to do that is to stand up against antisemitism, hate and racism, he said.

Need to attract independent voters

Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who is not ruling out a presidential bid, said at the event that a "course correction" is not needed, going against Hogan's words Friday. But the Republican Party does need to do a better job of attracting independent voters, Sununu said. He also pronounced Nevada incorrectly and misstated that it was still counting votes from the midterms.

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida "challenged the status quo" last week in D.C. when he ran for Republican Senate leader and lost to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. On Saturday, he urged Republicans to make sure Herschel Walker wins the Georgia Senate race in December.

"We should stop compromising. We should make the Democrats compromise," Scott said. "I want to thank everybody for caring so much about this country to demand that we actually do something."

Florida Gov. DeSantis, who polls show will be Trump's toughest opponent to beat if DeSantis decides to run, will speak Saturday night, though likely not before the Review-Journal's print deadline.

Minority Leader of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, who could replace Nancy Pelosi as House speaker, spoke about fentanyl deaths caused by an open southern border.

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"When I become speaker, we're going to move a hearing down on the border," McCarthy said, and legislation will pass to secure the border.

McCarthy did not hint at any Republican presidential candidate that he'd prefer, but instead criticized President Joe Biden and talked about the increased diversity of the Republican Party.

"We have more Hispanic Republicans, more Black Republicans, more Jewish Republicans, more women, we are filling the boat to make it look all like America. Why? Because our policies are right," McCarthy said.

About a third of Jewish adults vote Republican, with seven out of 10 identifying with or leaning toward the Democratic Party, according to Pew Research.

One question that arose from the event over the weekend was how to increase that percentage for Republicans. Former Sen. Norm Coleman from Minnesota who chairs the Republican Jewish Coalition said Jewish Republicans need to do a better job of reaching out to friends and relatives and explaining how Republican policies will benefit them.

Reprinted with permission from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

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