GEOFF BENNETT: While many of President Trump's nominees have been confirmed by the Senate at a breakneck pace, Kash Patel, his nominee to lead the FBI, will have to wait another week for a key Senate committee vote.

That's because Democrats on the Judiciary Committee forced a delay over objections to Mr. Patel's plans for mass firings at the FBI.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): The FBI director's loyalty must be to the American people, to the Constitution, and to the rule of law.

But Mr. Patel has made it clear that his loyalty is to the president.

He has threatened to come after, those are his words, in the past the president's critics.

GEOFF BENNETT: Even without Patel in place, acting leadership at the bureau is moving ahead on a plan to remove as many as 4,000 employees who investigated the Capitol attack and President Trump's handling of classified documents.

That effort for now is tied up in court.

For a Republican perspective, we're joined tonight by Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Thanks for being with us.

SEN. ERIC SCHMITT (R-MO): Good to be with you, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: So you heard Senate Democrats again today make the case that FBI director nominee Kash Patel is unqualified, they say, that he's a partisan political actor, or, worse, a conspiracy theorist who would turn the FBI into a tool of Donald Trump's retribution.

What about his background, his past work, his past public comments suggest to you that Democrats are wrong?

SEN. ERIC SCHMITT: Well, he was a prosecutor.

He was a public defender.

He was chief of staff at the Department of Defense.

He's held high-level government positions before.

And I think, interestingly, he was a victim of lawfare himself.

I think the FBI is ripe for real reform.

It's been weaponized in ways we have never seen before under the Biden administration and Christopher Wray.

The FBI went after Catholics.

The FBI went after parents who showed up to school board meetings.

The FBI prebunked the Hunter Biden laptop story.

So I think that's why you have seen approval ratings plummet for the FBI because of the political nature of their leadership.

There's a lot of great men and women who work for the FBI, but I think Kash Patel is going to come in there with the experience and a reform agenda to get it back to what it should be, which is fighting violent crime in this country.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, in his 2023 book titled "Government Gangsters," he included a list of 60 perceived Trump critics that Democrats argue functions as an enemies list.

If he's not going to be focused on retribution, as they see it, why the need for a list of potential targets?

SEN. ERIC SCHMITT: Well, that was their characterization of a footnote in his book, in the endnotes actually.

He was pretty clear in his testimony that he's committed.

He came to this country as an immigrant.

He believes very deeply in the American experiment.

He believes that people should be treated fairly under the law.

And I think having the perspective of the abuses that we have seen over the last four years, again, going after Catholics and parents and political enemies, he wants to put a stop to that.

Pam Bondi wants to put a stop to it too.

She will be leading and sworn in as attorney general.

So I think there's a real opportunity to get back to a place where our law is being applied fairly, that we don't have two tiers of justice that we saw under the Biden administration.

GEOFF BENNETT: I want to ask you about the potential for mass firings at the FBI, namely the thousands of FBI employees who worked on the investigations into the Capitol attack.

As you well know, many of those agents involved worked in the FBI's Counterterrorism Division.

So these are folks who investigate threats not only in the U.S., but from overseas, from groups like ISIS, Hamas, al-Qaida.

The list goes on.

The FBI Agents Association says that just the mere threat of these firings distracts and destabilizes the FBI work force.

Are you worried that this makes the country, as a result, less safe?

SEN. ERIC SCHMITT: Well, I think, honestly, you look at what's the approval rating that's plummeted over the FBI in the last four years because of the weaponization of the Biden administration, that's kept really good people away from the FBI that might have applied who don't want to belong to a Stalin-like political retribution campaign.

That's what we have seen.

Those are the facts.

That's what we have seen the last four years.

What Kash Patel testified about in that committee hearing I thought was really refreshing.

He said that about a third of the FBI agents are in Washington, D.C., right now.

Get those FBI agents across the country to take on violent crime, to take on human trafficking.

There's cities all across this country that could use that sort of help.

That's what he's talked about.

So regardless of the fearmongering that's taking place about what's actually going to happen, that's not what's going to happen.

Now, look, if there are people in the Department of Justice that had a political angle and wanted to subvert our justice system by settling political scores, of course they should be dismissed.

But that's not what we're talking about.

People who are doing counterterrorism, as you mentioned in your question, those people are going to have their jobs, and we want to reward people for doing a good job.

But I think we should also make sure that we don't have political hacks executing a political agenda in these agencies.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, let's talk more about these changes, because, to your point, many of the rank and file within the FBI do say that there needs to be some changes made to the structure and the management of the FBI.

So what kind of changes do you think that Kash Patel would bring about?

SEN. ERIC SCHMITT: Well, I think, again, about a third of all those FBI employees work in Washington, D.C. Now, they need to -- obviously, there need to be some people here.

But I think it was a refreshing kind of reform idea, which is to say, let's get those folks in St. Louis.

Let's get those folks in Chicago.

Let's get those folks around the border, where we see human trafficking from the cartels.

There's a lot of good things that the FBI can do.

But, sadly, I think there's been a lot of distractions.

GEOFF BENNETT: I mean, we should say, before you were the senator from Missouri, you were the state's attorney general.

And I want to ask you about this moment in time, because we have a president in President Trump who has a highly expansive view of executive power and a movement of conservatives who appear to be supporting or promoting this vision of the presidency with almost no limits.

How do you see the role of the executive, and how do you see your role as a member of a co-equal branch of government?

SEN. ERIC SCHMITT: Well, I think it's an interesting question.

I wonder if you asked any Democrats about this the last four years, because we had Joe Biden who bulldozed the Constitution when he tried to forgive a half-a-trillion dollars worth of student loan debt.

The Supreme Court said, you don't have the ability to do it.

Joe Biden tried to do it again and again and kept getting slapped down.

He charged OSHA, which was created to make sure forklifts beep when they back up, with forcing the COVID shot on 100 million Americans.

I know something about this.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, sir, I hear the point you think you're making, but Joe Biden's not the president anymore.

I'm asking about President Trump.

SEN. ERIC SCHMITT: No, no, no, no, right, but I want to put this in context, because the Democrats have somehow found religion now on the separation of powers.

What I can tell you is that the executive branch, which is all of this sort of trying to find waste, fraud and abuse, the president, of course, has authority to do that within the executive branch.

USAID was created through an executive order.

So I think it's important to reveal the facts here.

We should absolutely be reviewing abuse within the executive branch, and that's what President Trump is doing.

GEOFF BENNETT: Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri, thanks again for joining us this evening.

We appreciate it.

SEN. ERIC SCHMITT: Good to be with you.