Kash Patel Brings Us the Lowdown on the Nevada Senate Race

BUCK: Kash Patel is a senior adviser to some of the Trump-endorsed campaigns, including Adam Laxalt out of Nevada. Kash is a lawyer, former federal prosecutor. Kash, you have five minutes, my friend. Tell us what is going on. Is Adam going to win? What is happening?

PATEL: Ooof! Buck and Clay, great to be with you guys down on the ground here at home in Vegas. And here’s the rundown. We just actually got — happy to report — the rural counties, the redder parts of the state, which are 16 of the 18 counties, actually came in more than anticipated for Laxalt. The word was sky high. These numbers just came in. So we’ll be able to add thousands of votes currently to the Laxalt population, which is exactly what we want to do, and that’s a nice windfall for us.

What we’re waiting for, unfortunately, is this tomfoolery and shenanigans in Washoe and Clark County. For those of you that don’t know, those are the two counties that are most heavily populated in Nevada; 85% of the population lives in those two counties, and the registrars in those counties on Election Night refused to count some of the ballots and also refused to tell the campaign what ballots remained outstanding when it came to early decision in mail-in.

And so we’ve been trying to sift through that. And the reason they’re doing that is because they don’t want Adam Laxalt, who, by the way, as of right now with 84% in, is up to 25,000 votes on Catherine Cortez Masto. So that’s the general lay of the land. We’re hoping these counties come in fully by the end of the day so we can call this race. But it’s the first time out here in Nevada we’ve had this EASE voting for statewide races. So it’s a little bit of a wild card, too.

CLAY: Okay. So 25,000 vote lead — thank you for taking the time to talk to us.

PATEL: Sure.

CLAY: Do we have any idea how many ballots remain out to be tabulated? You said it’s at 85%. So that would indicate there’s some idea how many that 15% might still be out roughly, right?

PATEL: That’s a rough estimate. Our problem comes with the registrars in Washoe and Clark County, who won’t give us the numbers. They won’t fully identify the numbers for us because they said — and get this, they literally called and said — we’re understaffed. That was an intentional play, in my opinion, by the Clark County and Washoe County Registrar’s Office, because they want to be able to say, “Oh, we can’t get to that. We don’t know, and it looks like Catherine Cortez Masto is going to pull it out.” That’s the narrative they want out there. And that’s why I’m unable to answer your question with certainty because of their ineptitude, which I think was intentional to distract from Adam’s great campaign.

BUCK: Is that the primary…? And we’re speaking to Kash Patel, who’s working as a legal adviser for the Laxalt for Senate campaign. Kash, is that the primary shenanigan, if you will, that you’re seeing that you’re concerned about, or is there anything else? Because there’s a lot of funky stuff going on in Arizona, that’s for sure.

PATEL: Oh, that’s a whole ‘nother animal.

BUCK: Yeah.

PATEL: I mean, I’ve been helping out Kari Lake and Blake and Abe Hamadeh over there, and I think that’s going to be a longer term burnout there when it comes to, you know, shenanigans or unethical or unlawful, possibly, behavior. But for us here in Nevada, this seems to be the big — the early, the EASE voting and how that wild card applies, plus the delay for the registrar seems to be the two big issues. But the report that just came in just before I hopped on the air that we actually performed better than we thought in the redder counties in Nevada is a great report for us because it adds thousands of votes that even we didn’t anticipate, which just shows you how strong Adam campaigned on America First policies out here and how well that resonated out here.

CLAY: Okay. So, 25,000 lead.

PATEL: Mmm-hmm.

CLAY: When do you think there’s a resolution in Nevada to know who actually won that race?

PATEL: I would be happy if tomorrow morning at breakfast time, we have Adam Laxalt as the 50th United States senator. I think we can get there by then, but you never know in these scenarios.

CLAY: And it could come down —

PATEL: Mmm-hmm.

CLAY: I mean, we’ve been talking about how important each individual vote is. Lauren Boebert up 400 votes or whatever. I mean, this could be something where it comes down to 1,000 to 500.

PATEL: Mmm-hmm.

CLAY: I mean, it’s going to be very tight.

PATEL: No, that’s why I highlighted those red counties coming in. But those bigger numbers, I think that may end up being the difference — and it’s a great point. you bring up.

BUCK: Kash Patel. Kash, our buddy, stay on it, man. They’re lucky to have you out there watching over.

PATEL: Thanks, guys. Talk soon.