President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement that he will tap longtime ally Kash Patel to helm the FBI has electrified the MAGA faithful — as critics panic over the prospect that he will take a wrecking ball to the bureau.

Patel, 44, has garnered widespread fanfare from Trump’s core base over his push to dramatically overhaul the bureau, which he has accused of targeting conservatives. But MAGA enthusiasm hasn’t always translated into Senate approval and within hours critics had already begun mobilizing to oppose efforts to give him FBI Director Christopher Wray’s job.

“I gotta say, all of the weeping and gnashing of teeth, people pulling their hair out, are the people dismayed about having a real reformer come into the FBI and clean out the corrupted partisans who sadly have burrowed into senior career positions at the FBI,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told CBS News’ “Face The Nation” on Sunday.

“One of the most tragic consequences of four years of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is, both DOJ and the FBI have been politicized and weaponized, and I think Kash Patel is a very strong nominee to take on the partisan corruption in the FBI.”

Later, Patel served as a US National Security Council official, senior advisor to the acting Director of National Intelligence and chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense during Trump’s first administration.

Trump supporters lauded the selection of Patel, who has dangled the idea of shuttering the FBI’s headquarters in the Hoover Building on “day one” and opening up a “Deep State Museum” in its stead.

“Kash Patel was my deputy Director of National Intelligence when I was Acting. I can’t tell you how many people said to me ‘wow.’ He’s nothing like the media portrays him. I love him,” former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell posted on X.

Wray has three years left in his term, but Trump, 78, will have the power to fire him and attempt to replace him with Patel, 44, whom he has floated for other roles in the past.

Patel came on the national radar during Trump’s first administration when he worked as an aide to former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and probed the government’s actions surrounding the Russian collusion narrative against the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president.

Later, Patel served as a US National Security Council official, senior advisor to the acting Director of National Intelligence and chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense during Trump’s first administration.

During the interim period between Trump’s first and second administration, Patel publicly dangled the idea of shuttering the FBI’s headquarters in the Hoover Building on “day one” and opening up a “Deep State Museum” in its stead.

“Kash Patel was my deputy Director of National Intelligence when I was Acting. I can’t tell you how many people said to me ‘wow.’ He’s nothing like the media portrays him. I love him,” former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell posted on X.

“Kash Patel in his own words Why we need deep reforms from the top This is the BEST choice for FBI Director,” pundit Tim Pool contended showing a clip of Patel railing against the “two-tiered system of justice” based on one’s politics.

Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, reacted with alarm to Trump’s choice of Patel, calling him unqualified on CNN. Some MAGA faithful were cheered by McCabe’s strong reaction.

“Andrew McCabe was part of the deep state plot to take down President Trump. If he’s freaking out like this on CNN about Kash Patel being FBI Director, then Trump made the perfect pick,” conservative influencer Robby Starbuck posted on X with the clip McCabe.

“Kash Patel served a Snr. Director for counterterrorism when I was National Security Advisor. I was able to count on him to get any job done no matter how complex or difficult the task. He handled some of the nation’s most sensitive issues with care and discretion,” former National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said.

Many Republicans, particularly on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees, have been fiercely critical of Wray’s stewardship of the FBI. Despite that criticism, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SC) defended the current FBI director. 

“Chris Wray, you know, who the president nominated the first time around, I think the president picked a very good man to be the director of the FBI when he did that in his first term,” Rounds told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “I don’t have any complaints about the way that he’s done his job right now.”

“We’ll see what his process is, and whether [Trump] actually makes that nomination,” he added, keeping his options open on Patel. “We still go through a process, and that process includes advice and consent, which, for the Senate, means advice or consent sometimes.”

Several GOP senators heralded Patel, though he seems likely to face a bruising Senate confirmation process if it comes to that. Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) excited Trump’s base when he was announced as the intended pick for US attorney general. However, he later dropped out, citing concerns that he’d face an uphill battle in the Senate.

So far, Republican senators openly backing Patel have largely been on board with Trump’s picks, while the potential swing votes are keeping quiet. 

“I look forward to working with Kash Patel as FBI Director to release Epstein’s flight logs and black book. Under the Trump administration, the American people are going to get answers,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) posted on X.

“Chris Wray has failed at fundamental duties of FBI Dir He’s [shown] disdain for [Congressional] oversight & hasn’t lived up to his promises. It’s time 2 chart a new course 4 TRANSPARENCY +ACCOUNTABILITY at FBI,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said.

However, Grassley added a hint of skepticism: “Kash Patel must prove to Congress he will reform & restore public trust in the FBI.”

Critics lambasted Patel for his unfailing loyalty to Trump and argued that the FBI director should be more of an apolitical figure than how Patel has conducted himself over recent years.

Trump’s former National Security Adviser John Bolton likened his nomination to that of Joseph Stalin’s notorious head of the secret police.

“Trump has nominated Kash Patel to be his Lavrenty Beria. Fortunately, the FBI is not the NKVD. The Senate should reject this nomination 100-0,” Bolton said in a statement. 

Former 2016 GOP presidential hopeful Jeb Bush’s former communications director-turned-staunch Trump adversary Tim Miller blasted Patel as “the most dangerous nominee we’ve seen yet to our democracy.”

Jeff Blehar, co-host of “Political Beats” knocked Patel’s track record but also slammed his detractors for engaging in hyperbole.  

“Patel is a bad choice for FBI due to competence issues IMO (a real problem with many of Trump’s picks). But good Christ the hyperventilating, you people can’t modulate your tone even the slightest bit, can you? It’s always an impending Police State with you,” Blehar wrote on X. 

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) argued that the upper chamber should reject the planned effort by Trump to sack Wray.

“We already have a FBI Director, Christopher Wray, and his term does not expire until 2027. President-elect Trump knows this, because he nominated Director Wray in 2017 after he fired the previous Director, James Comey, another lifelong Republican who failed Trump’s loyalty test,” Durbin said in a statement.

“President Biden kept Director Wray in office because the FBI is supposed to be insulated from partisanship. Now, the President-elect wants to replace his own appointee with an unqualified loyalist. The Senate should reject this unprecedented effort to weaponize the FBI for the campaign of retribution that Donald Trump has promised.”

Detractors also pointed to former US Attorney General Bill Barr’s past critique of Patel in his 2022 book, “One Damn Thing After Another.”

“I categorically opposed making Patel deputy FBI director. I told Mark Meadows it would happen ‘over my dead body,'” he wrote. “Someone with no background as an agent would never be able to command the respect necessary to run the day-to-day operations of the bureau.”

Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI) ripped Patel, saying he “also consistently voices dangerous and misguided views, including a desire to prosecute journalists for reporting that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.”

“We cannot risk having such a person leading one of the nation’s most important law enforcement agencies. I urge President-elect Trump to reconsider and nominate a more appropriate individual to this crucial role,” Magaziner said in a statement.

During Trump’s first term, the president-elect’s allies had mused about Patel for various roles, including FBI director and even as a deputy to the CIA director. 

To get confirmed as the full-fledged director of the FBI, Patel will need to clear the Senate. Republicans are set to have a 53-seat majority, meaning he could only afford to lose four votes (the vice president is the tiebreaker).

Trump has suggested he could seek to bypass the Senate confirmation process, but Republican defectors could potentially scuttle that.

“It is the honor of a lifetime to be nominated by President Trump to serve as Director of the FBI. Together, we will restore integrity, accountability, and equal justice to our justice system and return the FBI to its rightful mission: protecting the American people,” Patel wrote on Truth Social in response to the announcement.