08:29 See a pregnant pause, another thing you won't get if you have that your app chopping out silences. Anyway yeah that's all fine hey I spoke to our Viscount the executive director of Project Veritas you want do that now or you wanna wait for some other? Oh you might as well do it now i'm kind of interested we spoke for about an hour What? Yeah, we spoke for an hour on the phone. Oh I thought you said it's gonna take an hour. It was going to take me an hour! No, he spoke for about an hour He's a Viscount by the way Sir Daniel Strack and he has been the executive director of Project Veritas for a year so this is his story and I 100% believe that...I hate saying 100%.
09:17 Do you know so many people 100%? You complain about this and you keep doing it. I don't believe i've ever said that no, not you No, this is not you This is everyone else This is okay percent. I don't know what what does it or is it like that little hundred thing that you see as a emoji It's the white version of 100 which is the black version of 100 And Scott Galloway, Professor Gee. He says it all the time and that's where I'm picking it up from and it's annoying me he'd be like a hundred percent a hundred percent Cara 100% so I'm okay go on off of that get me off of that please I don't notice it sorry
10:00 So he I don't hear it that much from anyone. I don't listen to Galaway, I've got one new one I've caught though and we'll bring up later in the show because it comes up in a clip Okay, and they're using on PBS to an extreme to an extreme now there's when you use law It's pretty strange it to an ex you used to an extreme to an extreme and So we hear, we dissect things don't we? We get down to nitty gritty. An executive director is... Executive directors CEO in a non-profit are almost interchangeable often it's exactly the same thing but in this case the executive director reports to the CEO and the CEO was James O'Keefe and our Viscount was quick to point out he is the ninth operating person because that's really what he is in this case in 12 years at Project Veritas
10:51 John I think you see he's like the CE sub sorry oh, yes. That's what he said his he was brought in He was hired by James O'Keefe to Help them with him with the data line with a day-to-day management because again He's the ninth operating officer in 12 years at Project Veritas. I think we can identify a problem... That's an indicator? Yes, 140 staff have turned over in the last seven years Another indicator! That's a big one that's a really big one they actually have to do some headcount reduction he was brought in to do this Oh hatchet man yeah bit of it well he also brought in HR
11:36 Hello, this is where the problems begin. So you know so people had a way and a place now to go and complain So he now I don't think he really knows James O'Keefe And I don't I certainly don't but from his description This is very much. I mean after listening to After listening to a story and he was just talking and talking The way James O'Keefe runs the business is, especially for creative people... If you don't like it if you can't get it done you're fired! Which I've heard all my life in mainstream television production so it doesn't phase me. It comes and goes yeah? Yeah I'm sure that this is not pleasant for younger people who have not witnessed this management style. Roseanne Barr used to be notorious Oh really? For being in the writers room
12:33 Just yelling at some poor writer you're and it was always the same phrase. I'm thinking You're so fucking fired. Yes, say Yes people have no right but the writers room to this day are still like that on many shows writers rooms are brutal So someone you know, so now they have a lot of Middle management now or management. I should say a project Veritas even if you look at their form 990 they have a chief strategy officer What what kind of position is that even a chief strategy officer this marketing? Basically marketing business development, or donor stewardship Also marketing also marketing most jobs are marketing certainly in a nonprofit environment your marketing to your donors
13:26 And so the other part of the way James O'Keefe runs is, look I've got to do this. I'm raising money. I've got to go to this shoot. I need a jet get it now get me the presidential suite and you'd everyone up there for meetings So in effect very similar to Bill in my mind where Bill Gates says Hey, I can fly private jets because look at all the good I'm doing or Nancy Pelosi You know like III can fly anywhere. I want I could I'm doing good Does that make sense? Yeah, it does actually. And this is not crazy for someone who starts a company like this an organization what they're now 12-13 years whatever they've been
14:12 been running and building is, you know this is how you run things. And the more management come came in and at a certain point if the CFO says no you can't do that and The CEO fires the CFO without the board and the board is all jacked on being precise You know it's look this if your nonprofit 501c3 and c4 you have to report And you have to, and you have a fiduciary responsibility. So that's where things got out of whack and it just came to what this I'm paraphrasing what our Viscount there said It just came to ahead Where the board said no No You can no longer Have this power To just fire and spend and do whatever you want Then the suggestion was My favorite
15:06 Yeah, well we'll give you a title like president which I love. I've been the president of all my companies because you have You're totally in the executive team but you have no responsibility i'm just the president, you know? I don't do anything else and he should get a private plane budget whatever The guy needs to operate because he's also doing most of the fundraising it appears to me yeah uh is but but that mechanism of removing him as CEO, that just set him off and he's like no. No no this is a coup which of course it is and I'm not going to come back! And so he has not officially resigned you know everyone still on the payroll although now parts of the staff are literally down the street at his apartment working out of his apartment with him So its one of those almost like... what was it? Like The Office
15:56 where Michael, you know starting something new and he goes do anything. He has half the staff in his apartment You know these things are not good and it's come to a head where The best solution would be for James to come back and everyone to work it out I don't think anyone sees that happening at all at all at all Well, it was a nice experiment It went on for 13 years personally And I don't want to get any flack for this but I don't think they accomplished the damn thing Well, and this was kind of my point when I was talking to him like you know so is Acorn gone? You know that was his first expose Has Pfizer stopped doing what they're doing. It seems like we get a big cheerleading squad for everything but
16:45 I mean the same with us, nothing we expose doesn't change anything. It changes people's minds and that is important. We are not trying to change the world we're trying to get people line up their thoughts correctly. Speak for yourself! Well you might be but not me believe me. No I understand so it But they're trying to change the world it seems to me. Yes, and there's a huge belief in the journalists and I think they're looking at possibly a new face for the organization which is an interesting move if they did it fast enough. I think that could possibly do that
17:26 And that's the downside, is you know the people who work there really believe they're saving the world doing all these things and that it's about the work and it's not about James. To which I respectfully said to our Viscount bro, James is Project Veritas! I don't see how anything else...and then I think they're prepared to go through a rough patch and start and try to reboot without him It's not impossible. It has been done, where you have a super charismatic leader who gets booted out and somebody else comes in who can carry the load
18:06 Rare, is my conclusion to that possibility. Rare it can happen but it's a dream world kind of thing if you got still got cash flow and everything coming through yeah you can probably coast for a year or two and you better get that guy fast I don't know if you can do it And then again you have to take a look at what are doing here? Is Project Veritas just kinda more serious version of candid camera? I mean they don't tell everyone to turn around hey over there there's a camera I mean, I just am very disappointed and I like what they've done. I like the Pfizer thing. I liked the whole thing but again it accomplished nothing The mainstream media has got to stick up their ass about any of it so if they come up with a real scoop which they've done literally Yeah It doesn't get picked up by anyone and so its outside the mainstream Its fringe! Its like the Twitter files you know? They might as well not exist
19:01 They just might as well not exist. It's good for everyone else, like hey you know oh that's right but that's about it and you know the biggest problem with running this type of organization because I have the 2021 filing over four million dollars in legal fees and he let me in on the finances said Oh no we did spend seven million last year on legal fees Yeah, this is the problem. It doesn't matter who's going to do this you need that type of backing and Fundraising quite honestly to make it to make something like that work it seems to me that the only way can make something like That work is it? It's actually a legal office
19:49 that has a subsidiary. A law office, a major New York law firm has a subsidiary that goes and does these videos take them on that's the way to go Rudy Giuliani should be doing that Yeah, yeah. He won't but... No of course not So I guess what my take away is The problem is they have to run everything through legal and the legal says no to everything But you know so no O'Keefe You're not gonna see funding I think a lot of donors although you know they say oh now we've got donor secured And I know our Vycom believes it Maybe they have some secured for the short term
20:34 I don't know, i've never seen O'Keefe do a sales pitch but he's probably pretty decent. Well apparently one of the problems was... that one of the board members had a pretty exclusive get-together and O'Keefe was there, and then you know the next day or whatever he's yelling like you need to send everyone who was there this email. Well no dude this is like casual these are my people you know it's an introduction No! You need to send this email to all of them You know, so when you get into that level where you're yelling at your board because you want to fundraise through their network kind of directly. This is not how it works or in my experience let's put it that way Yeah well no you can't exploit some of these networks they are very sensitive to it Extremely sensitive These are the networks that fund museums
21:41 Yeah, I think you're right actually. You know and it's like the museum...you talked to some people that have fundraised for museums. O'Keefe hangs out with Bobby Kennedy Jr., he's up in those levels yeah these are the people that fund museums. And when you talk to these guys who are fundraisers and that, they talk about oh yeah we brought in 15 million dollars last month. Now we're short. Yeah right I'm thinking oh geez what's going on there? Anyway whatever if there's any ulterior motive behind any of this and it's still very possible even on the O'Keefe side i'm leaving everything open to possibilities
22:29 I do not think that you can resurrect this. Even, and I know who they're talking to even with a... which I promise not to tell even with a new name to come in and new face I just don't..I think it's too tough And for O'Keefe to continue yeah he needs the law office He- I'm sure he can fundraise from a lot of the same people but he'll need the law office That's what you need otherwise It's just a nonstarter You get lots of people who will work so It just seems like we got a lot of so many of these cool projects, you know and And the alternative media just turns out to be you know Like a lot of big money problems behind the scenes like Crowder Shapiro all of this Well they're swinging for they're not like
23:22 You know, the no agenda team where you have a lean...we stay lean. We stay mean. Yeah we are very mean and super-mean especially to each other. And don't…We're not turning it into anything other than what turns itself into another words that like the No Agenda shop for example. Very few people would allow that they wouldn't let them shop just go out and make No agenda mugs. Yeah, just make mugs and whatever. They keep it in-house and that costs money! And it's overhead because of extra people It says these are the mistakes they make yeah I think it's a mistake to to make mugs if you're a podcaster You podcast...you don't...You're not in the mug business No! Merch! Merch! Get a hold on me Call me up and I'll send ya some merch! I don't want no merch