The Charlie Kirk Show - February 20, 2023


James O’Keefe is Out at Project Veritas— What Happened? with Kash Patel


Episode Stats


Length

36 minutes

Words per minute

162.54947

Word count

5,887

Sentence count

485

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Toxicity

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

James O'Keefe is out at Project Veritas, and we play the exclusive tapes from his final speech to his employees at the organization. We also hear from a source close to the organization, and from a board member, about the situation.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.
00:00:00.000 Today, the Charlie Kirk Show, wild what is happening at Project Veritas.
00:00:05.000 It's really something.
00:00:06.000 James O'Keefe is out at Project Veritas.
00:00:09.000 We play the exclusive tapes from his final speech to his employees at Project Veritas.
00:00:16.000 Email me your thoughts as always: freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:20.000 Subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.
00:00:22.000 Open up your podcast application and type in Charlie Kirk Show.
00:00:26.000 Get involved with Turning Point USA today at tpusa.com.
00:00:31.000 I encourage all of you listening to start a high school chapter or a college chapter that is tpusa.com.
00:00:40.000 That is tpusa.com.
00:00:43.000 As always, you can email me directly: freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:47.000 That is freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:50.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:51.000 Here we go.
00:00:53.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:54.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
00:00:56.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:01:00.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:01:03.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:01:04.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:01:05.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:14.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:22.000 That's why we are here.
00:01:25.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at AndrewandTodd.com.
00:01:34.000 So, according to reporter McCabe, James O'Keefe has just tendered his resignation to his former team and board members from Project Veritas.
00:01:48.000 And so, it seems as if James O'Keefe is no longer at Project Veritas.
00:01:54.000 This is an ever-evolving story.
00:01:59.000 There's a lot that will be learned from this.
00:02:02.000 Again, I do not want to violate any confidentiality that I have.
00:02:07.000 I mean, it's not a contractual thing, it's just a trust thing because I've been on the phone all weekend getting calls and talking to people about this.
00:02:13.000 But here's what I can share with you: I can share with you based on everything that I've learned.
00:02:18.000 I have not come across a piece of information that I believe would warrant James O'Keefe's departure or treatment the way he's being treated at Project Veritas.
00:02:28.000 Are there things that James could do differently?
00:02:30.000 Of course, obviously, there's things I could do differently.
00:02:33.000 But James O'Keefe is a hero of the movement.
00:02:36.000 And you better believe I've asked questions and asked questions and asked questions.
00:02:40.000 And some of it is just kind of silly, subjective management stuff.
00:02:45.000 Oh, James is mean, or James is tough to work for.
00:02:48.000 Get over yourself.
00:02:49.000 Seriously, go find somewhere else to work.
00:02:52.000 You are in a very intense, high-profile, high-stakes nonprofit organization.
00:02:58.000 This is not a daycare.
00:03:00.000 If you're a member of Generation Z, like, well, James O'Keefe is really mean.
00:03:05.000 Whatever, fine.
00:03:06.000 Go talk to a counselor.
00:03:09.000 If there's something else that I will learn in addition to all of that sort of sentiment, then whatever, so be it.
00:03:16.000 Project Veritas, the board of directors, seems to have just released a statement.
00:03:24.000 Here's what I could say: this is a very disappointing development, okay?
00:03:28.000 And it's disappointing for a variety of different reasons.
00:03:31.000 It's disappointing that James O'Keefe labored for quite some time to build an organization over 10 years that got shots on target, not just puff, not just vapor, not just talk, but actual shots on target on Pfizer, on the CDC, on the FDA.
00:03:53.000 Got actual wins, W's in the category for the fight for liberty.
00:03:58.000 Again, it's a little bit cruel to say this, but he metaphorically collected scalps.
00:04:03.000 I say metaphorically because the apparatchiks take everything I say literally, metaphorically, okay?
00:04:08.000 He got wins.
00:04:09.000 He was able to put points on the board.
00:04:11.000 So he has the biggest story in the history of Project Veritas Pfizer.
00:04:17.000 Four days later, there's an emergency board meeting called and they remove James O'Keefe.
00:04:22.000 Now, if any of you in this audience are interested in this, I encourage you to contact Project Veritas if you've given money, if you're a fan, or if you're a supporter, and express your frustration if you feel moved to do this.
00:04:38.000 And I will say again: if I am missing something, please enlighten and educate me.
00:04:43.000 I say that to anybody involved in this situation.
00:04:47.000 However, saying that James O'Keefe is difficult to work for, you are giving Pfizer, you are giving the bad guys a massive victory here.
00:04:58.000 And to just kind of put O'Keeffe out and to now he has to go start his own thing or whatever, it really is a shame.
00:05:06.000 It is a tragedy, actually.
00:05:08.000 And we're going to have James O'Keefe's back.
00:05:11.000 Again, if there is something I am missing in this situation in regards to O'Keefe, I'll be happy to be enlightened.
00:05:24.000 But I've certainly asked the tough questions of parties involved.
00:05:27.000 I've certainly asked, is there something I'm missing?
00:05:31.000 Is there a law that was broken?
00:05:33.000 Is there something that very much that could be incriminating?
00:05:39.000 And I have received radio silence.
00:05:42.000 And well, James is hard to work for.
00:05:45.000 There's a reason why we gave James O'Keefe center stage at America Fest and Turning Point USA repeatedly because he's a hero.
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00:06:34.000 Innovation Race is a clarion call to action.
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00:06:40.000 Unless we take a stand, China will become the next world leader, threatening our economic and military security and the very idea of American greatness. 1.00
00:06:48.000 In today's high technology world, there is no prize for second place.
00:06:52.000 See it for yourself.
00:06:53.000 Watch Innovation Race Now on Demand and buy the DVD at salemnow.com.
00:06:58.000 That is salemnow.com.
00:07:00.000 Watch InnovationRace at salemnow.com.
00:07:06.000 So there's going to be more and more information that will soon be made public, but let me share what is already public.
00:07:11.000 Therefore, I'm not violating information.
00:07:14.000 James is no longer at Project Veritas.
00:07:17.000 We will soon learn whether or not he has resigned or whether or not he was fired or terminated by the board.
00:07:23.000 That distinction is actually very important, but that we are going to learn that together as more and more information comes.
00:07:30.000 Here's the essence of it.
00:07:31.000 Here's something I want to communicate.
00:07:33.000 We need Project Veritas, but we need James O'Keefe more.
00:07:39.000 There is no Project Veritas without James O'Keefe, period.
00:07:43.000 Now, some people say, well, Charlie, can Project Veritas continue their great work?
00:07:48.000 Maybe, maybe not.
00:07:48.000 That's not the point.
00:07:49.000 There's a couple angles I want to explore with you here, and then we'll get back to Ukraine.
00:07:53.000 I'm sorry, we took a complete detour today, but I think it's necessary.
00:07:57.000 And I think many of you agree because O'Keefe has just been a phenomenal hero for our movement repeatedly.
00:08:05.000 He dug up so much stuff.
00:08:06.000 He shined a light on the darkness.
00:08:09.000 So, a couple of thoughts.
00:08:11.000 We need James O'Keefe.
00:08:13.000 And I refuse to believe, unless there was a felony that was committed, which I have zero evidence, by the way. 0.98
00:08:19.000 And I asked, I said, Is there something where we're all going to look like idiots for defending James O'Keefe? 0.99
00:08:23.000 Nope, nope, nope, nope. 1.00
00:08:26.000 Outside of that, well, he was cruel.
00:08:29.000 Well, he was mean, or he had a bunch of his staff go to one of his dancing performances of Oklahoma.
00:08:38.000 So, what?
00:08:39.000 That's really look when you're dealing with somebody as impactful, as effective, as hardworking as James O'Keefe, the standard and/or the bar to remove such an individual needs to be high.
00:09:01.000 It'd be one thing if O'Keefe was just running Project Veritas and they weren't getting wins.
00:09:06.000 The most successful story in Project Veritas history was the Pfizer story.
00:09:14.000 And four days later, an emergency board meeting was called, and all the stuff starts to come.
00:09:18.000 Now, maybe those two things are unrelated, but that might not be it.
00:09:24.000 James looks like Jack Poseobic has his sources well sourced.
00:09:28.000 It's actually James O'Keefe was removed as CEO of Project Veritas.
00:09:33.000 He did not resign.
00:09:34.000 Let me just say, Jack Poseobic has very good sources.
00:09:38.000 This is a shame, and I'm not going to lay off of this.
00:09:41.000 We're not going to spend the whole show talking about this, but I encourage you, the audience, you, the grassroots, to support James in whatever he's doing and to take a moment and get mad about this because we have way too many demons,
00:10:03.000 too many enemies, too many bad guys to fight, to allow complaints about James's tone, or he was mean, or he was harsh, his eccentricities to allow us to put James O'Keefe into exile and/or remove him.
00:10:31.000 I say this as somebody who runs a nonprofit, who has grown a nonprofit over a decade.
00:10:41.000 It's not easy.
00:10:43.000 Most nonprofits do not succeed and they do not hit critical mass.
00:10:47.000 I've been very blessed at Turning Point USA.
00:10:49.000 We've had a fabulous team over the last decade that has helped us run it and grow it.
00:10:54.000 Without them, we never would have been able to do it.
00:10:57.000 Tyler, Lauren, Andrew, I could go through the whole team.
00:11:02.000 And I could say that when you build something that begins to have impact, yes, a lot of people start to come after you.
00:11:08.000 RC Maxwell, who's probably the best source, says James O'Keefe was removed from his position as CEO by the Project Veritas board.
00:11:18.000 They are in charge now.
00:11:19.000 Yeah, that's correct.
00:11:21.000 This is a blow.
00:11:23.000 James is going to rise and he'll be fine.
00:11:25.000 He'll figure it out.
00:11:26.000 He'll probably start his own deal or something.
00:11:28.000 But to build something as powerful and as impactful as Project Veritas and then be taken out just like that, really disappointing in more ways than one.
00:11:40.000 I'd like your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:11:43.000 I know many of you have supported Project Veritas and you're saying we're communicating to the organization about this.
00:11:52.000 Someone says, Charlie, what is happening?
00:11:53.000 This is disturbing on many levels.
00:11:55.000 America is being destroyed from within.
00:11:57.000 And now, James, America needs James O'Keefe.
00:11:59.000 Amen.
00:12:00.000 You're basically taking James out of the infrastructure that he labored over, that he built, that he was an entrepreneurial visionary because of his idiosyncrasies or eccentricities or his dancing or theatrics.
00:12:17.000 That makes me yawn.
00:12:19.000 Okay?
00:12:20.000 If you remove every entrepreneurial power force of an organization because you don't like that they're dancing and all that, really?
00:12:29.000 That's the standard now?
00:12:31.000 Again, I've asked the tough questions and I have received nothing.
00:12:36.000 I just get kind of like, well, you'll see in all this.
00:12:39.000 Yeah, that's not good enough for me.
00:12:41.000 It isn't.
00:12:42.000 And let's just kind of remind ourselves what James was able to build.
00:12:47.000 Go after Pfizer.
00:12:48.000 FDA went after some of the most grotesque public school curriculum.
00:12:54.000 That's just, he just did that in his spare time.
00:12:57.000 And the biggest one of all, as I mentioned, was the Pfizer hit.
00:13:01.000 It makes you wonder how true was that Pfizer video.
00:13:06.000 Doesn't that make you think?
00:13:07.000 It makes you wonder: did James get too close to the sun?
00:13:14.000 I actually don't mean that in the original Greek story, because actually flying too close to the sun might mean that you got too cocky.
00:13:22.000 And so that's probably actually not the best analogy.
00:13:25.000 The point is that he got too close to the misdeeds in the shadows.
00:13:35.000 Someone says, Charlie, how do we contact Project Veritas?
00:13:37.000 How do we contact their board?
00:13:39.000 You guys can go to their website, projectveritas.com.
00:13:44.000 Be respectful, obviously.
00:13:46.000 Don't say anything bad and obviously don't do threats.
00:13:49.000 You know what's so amazing is they're still raising money off of the Pfizer video on the front page of projectveritas.com.
00:13:55.000 That's really something.
00:13:57.000 You got to wonder if they're actually going to do that.
00:13:58.000 Remember, the FBI raided James O'Keefe.
00:14:02.000 FBI raids him.
00:14:03.000 He's in multiple lawsuits.
00:14:06.000 And yet, the person that he had to worry about the most were the people closest to him.
00:14:14.000 Man, to just think that this could not have been resolved in private meetings, non-emotionally, without getting your heart rate up and just saying, okay, we don't like that you did this.
00:14:26.000 Can you calm this down?
00:14:28.000 Can we sort this through?
00:14:29.000 Just using your reason, just going through this like adults, instead of having this pour into the public sphere, it's really, it's really something.
00:14:41.000 Getting a lot of emails here.
00:14:43.000 Someone says, Charlie, you can bet someone got the board of directors to force this decision.
00:14:47.000 I don't believe for one second he's removed just because people said he was mean or hard to work for.
00:14:52.000 All right, well, we got to have his back.
00:14:54.000 We do, whatever he ends up doing.
00:14:56.000 And this is some, this is some serious stuff, I got to tell you.
00:15:02.000 You know, I've known James for a decade.
00:15:06.000 When I first got my start at Turning Point USA, I was 19, 20 years old.
00:15:11.000 James, I think, is only a little bit older than me.
00:15:13.000 I think he's like 34, 35, if not mistaken.
00:15:15.000 He's five or six years older than me.
00:15:18.000 I think so.
00:15:19.000 James is 38.
00:15:20.000 Wow.
00:15:21.000 Everyone's so much older than me.
00:15:23.000 Geez.
00:15:24.000 James is nine years older than me.
00:15:26.000 So that means that he would have been, okay, he would have been like 27 at the time.
00:15:29.000 He was always so sweet to me.
00:15:30.000 And boy, was he effective.
00:15:32.000 He has been effective.
00:15:33.000 And we don't even remember all the successful hits that he has had there.
00:15:39.000 Thankfully, I have a really bad back, so I would never dance like this.
00:15:43.000 So I guess that makes me safe from all of that.
00:15:46.000 I'm kidding.
00:15:48.000 Got to have James's back.
00:15:49.000 This is some breaking news.
00:15:51.000 James is out at Project Veritas.
00:15:54.000 It's a shame, to tragedy.
00:15:56.000 And we, the American people, you, the audience, I encourage you to not just sit idly by.
00:16:02.000 Express your opinion, voice your anger and your frustration, and most importantly, communicate your support for James O'Keefe.
00:16:14.000 The left wants us to turn our back on our fighters and our heroes when things get tough.
00:16:19.000 We need to show them the opposite, that we lean in to our courageous heroes when we need them, when they need us the most.
00:16:28.000 And this is one of those moments.
00:16:29.000 James needs you.
00:16:31.000 James is very similar to Patton.
00:16:33.000 Remember when they dismissed Patton because he allegedly slapped the soldier on the face?
00:16:37.000 Not everyone is serious about winning wars.
00:16:41.000 Look, it is time to consider a rollover of that 401k into an IRA.
00:16:47.000 The investment world is completely different in 2023, and you cannot do the same thing as last year.
00:16:52.000 Woke companies are aggressively implementing ESG.
00:16:56.000 Interest rates are going up, and inflation is still lingering.
00:16:59.000 If you have over $150,000, now is the time to move your money to a biblical responsible investing strategy with my friends at PAX Financial Group.
00:17:07.000 I put my money with PAX, and guess what?
00:17:09.000 It's up 12% since last year, and that's while everyone else is down.
00:17:13.000 No joke.
00:17:14.000 Here's how you can connect with PAX.
00:17:15.000 Text Charlie to the number 74868.
00:17:18.000 That's it.
00:17:19.000 Just take out your phone.
00:17:20.000 Text Charlie, C-H-A-R-L-I-E to 74868.
00:17:28.000 So take out your phone.
00:17:29.000 Text Charlie to the number 74868 for biblical responsible investing.
00:17:34.000 Text Charlie to 74868.
00:17:40.000 Building things is hard.
00:17:42.000 It took James 10 years to build Project Veritas, and it took them a couple weeks to tear it down.
00:17:47.000 It's a good lesson for life.
00:17:49.000 Infrastructure is necessary, needs to be strengthened in more ways than one.
00:17:55.000 I could talk about this at length.
00:17:57.000 I have obviously deeply held opinions.
00:18:00.000 Okay, yeah, let's play Cut 23 just for a little reminder of James O'Keefe love.
00:18:04.000 We're just supposed to turn our back on this guy.
00:18:07.000 Oh, yeah, he's a theater guy, and he might have expensed a meal he shouldn't have.
00:18:12.000 Really?
00:18:13.000 That's the reason to get rid of him?
00:18:15.000 How weak are we?
00:18:17.000 Absent a felony.
00:18:20.000 There is no reason.
00:18:21.000 I mean, I shouldn't say that.
00:18:22.000 Absent a felony or some serious crime or misdemeanor of which no one is even alluding to.
00:18:29.000 Why is this even a conversation?
00:18:30.000 Fix it.
00:18:31.000 Solve it.
00:18:32.000 No, they're taking for granted the talent, the tenacity, the commitment of James O'Keefe.
00:18:38.000 He's special.
00:18:39.000 Play cut 23.
00:18:41.000 We have a First Amendment in these United States, and I'm allowed to be on these streets and ask you questions.
00:18:46.000 You understand?
00:18:46.000 I've got emails between New York Times reporters and the Department of Justice.
00:18:50.000 Thanks to Mr. Thompson and Judicial Watch, we filed a FOIA request.
00:18:54.000 Are you scared about what I might find?
00:18:58.000 Do you typically follow people?
00:19:00.000 Is that what you do?
00:19:00.000 You stalk people?
00:19:01.000 Yeah.
00:19:02.000 James.
00:19:02.000 I don't work in the world.
00:19:03.000 I don't work in symbiosis with the federal government.
00:19:05.000 James scared.
00:19:06.000 James.
00:19:07.000 How are you?
00:19:07.000 James.
00:19:08.000 James.
00:19:09.000 He's shaking.
00:19:10.000 He's shaking.
00:19:13.000 How does sunlight feel?
00:19:15.000 That was James going right into the darkness.
00:19:18.000 And it's very similar to Caesar.
00:19:20.000 And I hate to overly dramatize this, but it is very serious to Caesar, where the people you actually had to worry about the most were not the enemies abroad, but the senators and trusted advisors.
00:19:33.000 If only this happened on March 15th, it would have been really fitting.
00:19:37.000 A lot of people saying, Charlie, I contacted the website.
00:19:39.000 I'm doing all that.
00:19:40.000 Okay, we could touch on that.
00:19:41.000 I do want to talk about this Marjorie Taylor Greene story.
00:19:43.000 And I had this whole Ukraine thing that is just, it's vaporized at this point. 0.80
00:19:50.000 But I had a really interesting opinion on the whole thing.
00:19:53.000 And, okay, but Marjorie Taylor Greene is going viral.
00:19:56.000 It's going to be the number one news story right now everywhere because of what she tweeted. 1.00
00:20:00.000 She says, quote, we need a national divorce. 1.00
00:20:04.000 We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. 0.68
00:20:08.000 Everyone I talk to says this, from the sick and disgusting woke culture issues being shoved on our throat to the Democrats' traitorous Americalized policies, we are done. 0.79
00:20:16.000 Okay. 0.59
00:20:17.000 So it depends what she means by a national divorce.
00:20:20.000 We have said on this program for quite some time that we are tragically and unfortunately heading closer and closer to a national divorce.
00:20:30.000 However, we've never actually called for a national divorce on this program because I actually think that's really sad.
00:20:38.000 Now, if Marjorie Taylor Greene means a return to federalism, I totally support that.
00:20:43.000 I think she actually means that because it's not totally clear, because that's such an abstract term.
00:20:48.000 The left immediately is like, oh, it's going to be secession.
00:20:50.000 She's not saying that.
00:20:52.000 However, I would be careful saying we need a national divorce because if we play out that analogy or that metaphor, do you know any divorces?
00:21:05.000 No, that's not true.
00:21:06.000 I do know a couple. 0.89
00:21:07.000 Most divorces are messy. 1.00
00:21:10.000 Let's put it that way. 1.00
00:21:11.000 Because then it's who gets the kids? 0.92
00:21:13.000 How much are you going to pay me in child support?
00:21:15.000 The point being is, yeah, it's easy to say, okay, yeah, we're going to have a national divorce.
00:21:19.000 You think that would be seamless?
00:21:22.000 The more I've thought this through, the more I've concluded that divorces are rarely worthwhile and you should try to find reconciliation.
00:21:33.000 So I do not actually have a heart for a national divorce.
00:21:36.000 We might be getting closer and closer to one, tragically.
00:21:42.000 It might end up being the only solution where the country who hates each other might be able to coexist.
00:21:48.000 And I totally understand what MTG is saying in the sense where when you have 90% of people that live in San Francisco that think that men can become, men can have birth, it's hard to have a country like that.
00:21:58.000 What actually unifies us, literally speaking a different language, have a different history.
00:22:02.000 But to get to the place where you say the situation necessitates a national divorce, depends what you mean by that.
00:22:09.000 If she means a restoration of federalism, I think that's perfectly responsible.
00:22:14.000 But if she means a schism similar to the Eastern Roman Empire, which eventually became Byzantium, history shows us that that can be very messy.
00:22:25.000 I think we should definitely say we might be getting closer to one, but I think we should be very skeptical and apprehensive of what that actually means if it were to happen.
00:22:37.000 Kash Patel is with us.
00:22:39.000 James O'Keefe is out at Project Veritas.
00:22:41.000 We've obtained some exclusive footage and we're going to play it right here.
00:22:44.000 Play cut 25, please.
00:22:46.000 For the last 13 years, I've been the same person I've always been, probably better than I used to be.
00:22:53.000 These are adjectives some people used: tough, hard-charging, driven, creative, exacting.
00:23:00.000 I have extremely high standards and somewhat disorganized.
00:23:04.000 I don't ask you how your Thanksgiving was, okay?
00:23:08.000 Or the names of your siblings, although a good leader probably should.
00:23:13.000 I don't do that.
00:23:14.000 I ask a lot of you, a lot of you, but I don't ever ask you to do anything I haven't myself done and continue to do.
00:23:21.000 I haven't always been the most compassionate leader, and that is admittedly a fault of mine.
00:23:29.000 Something I need to work on.
00:23:31.000 Continue, cut 26, please.
00:23:34.000 So our mission continues on.
00:23:38.000 I'm not done.
00:23:39.000 The mission will perhaps take on a new name, and it may be no longer called Veritas.
00:23:45.000 Project Veritas.
00:23:47.000 I'll meet a bunch of people around me and I'll make sure you know how to find me.
00:23:56.000 So with that, I'm going to collect my things.
00:23:59.000 I'm going to load them into my car.
00:24:01.000 And I hope to see some of you soon.
00:24:04.000 And James O'Keefe is out.
00:24:06.000 I apologize for the choppiness of the clip.
00:24:08.000 Our team's doing the best job they can.
00:24:09.000 We just received this footage.
00:24:10.000 We're tweeting it out in real time.
00:24:12.000 So just Cash, more broadly, feel free to comment on this if you want.
00:24:15.000 Let's just focus on the movement needs James O'Keefe.
00:24:18.000 Your thoughts.
00:24:19.000 No, absolutely.
00:24:20.000 Look, I've known James for a long time.
00:24:22.000 We just shared the stage together at Judicial Watch Conference, me, him and Devin Nunes.
00:24:26.000 And we share a hardcore belief that exposing corruption, not just in government, but in the private sector and the confluence of the two is something this country needs more than ever.
00:24:35.000 And James has led the effort at Project Veritas to expose so much corruption, not just from Congress, not just from the executive branch, but in their partnerships with big tech, you know, just to name one in recent examples.
00:24:48.000 And so I believe knowing James and his vast organization and resources, he is going to continue.
00:24:54.000 It'll have a new name, but we will see that effort continue.
00:24:57.000 Shame.
00:24:57.000 Play cut 28 of O'Keefe learns about how he got fired.
00:25:00.000 There were tactical disagreements about the boldness of approaches soliciting donations.
00:25:06.000 I was told, and I'm paraphrasing, by asking for X dollars right now, you will prevent 10 X dollars down the road.
00:25:15.000 That advice ran contrary to everything I knew to be true in my 13 years of fundraising.
00:25:21.000 But that conflict was even more fundamental and essentially boiled down to this.
00:25:25.000 And my vision, I'm going to paraphrase Howard Rourke, the architect, quote, I don't build in order to have donors.
00:25:32.000 I have donors in order to build.
00:25:35.000 That's what I believed.
00:25:37.000 And I felt like we had a conflict of visions.
00:25:39.000 We measure our success in terms of what we produce, not just in terms of our wallets.
00:25:46.000 That was a pretty fundamental conflict, I felt.
00:25:49.000 So continue here.
00:25:50.000 Again, we're trying to make sense of all this as well, but that's James explaining why he was terminated.
00:25:55.000 And I have the whole transcript of his speech, by the way, that we are going to tweet.
00:25:59.000 Play cut 29, please.
00:26:01.000 He continues.
00:26:02.000 This was a 45-minute speech.
00:26:03.000 Our team's doing a great job going through it on hyper speed for you guys.
00:26:07.000 Play cut 29.
00:26:08.000 This is breaking news.
00:26:09.000 The day prior, I had informed him in front of his colleagues that if he wasn't willing to follow my lead, he'd be shown the door.
00:26:16.000 I tried to deal with it privately, but I was unsuccessful.
00:26:20.000 And the disagreement boiled over publicly in a staff meeting.
00:26:24.000 The next day, this individual refused to resign, so I fired him.
00:26:28.000 Later that same day, that's Thursday, February 2nd, a few days after the 50 million viewed Pfizer videos, I was informed by a different officer of Project Veritas that he would go to the board in a few hours from that moment and have an emergency vote to restructure this company.
00:26:45.000 Receiving an agenda in my email while I was sitting on an airplane tarmac with the doors closing, the meeting was scheduled for the moment that my plane landed in Nashville.
00:26:55.000 It became clear to me in that moment, I would be removed from my position at Project Veritas by the time I landed at my destination.
00:27:04.000 Cash, 20 seconds.
00:27:08.000 That is a tragic reality of how boards supersede the traditional purpose of a mission.
00:27:15.000 And unfortunately for James, they took him out.
00:27:19.000 But as I said before, and as you know, Charlie, you've created a juggernaut bigger than anything I've ever seen.
00:27:25.000 And you have to just keep the mission first and fighting on.
00:27:28.000 I think James is going to do that.
00:27:29.000 I think we're going to see him in short order somewhere.
00:27:32.000 Cash, thank you.
00:27:33.000 Thank you for being agile and support Cash, everybody.
00:27:35.000 He's terrific.
00:27:36.000 Thank you, Cash.
00:27:37.000 Thanks, guys.
00:27:41.000 James O'Keefe's entire speech is now public.
00:27:45.000 Let's play cut 30 from his remarks.
00:27:48.000 The very next day on Friday, this is now Friday, February 3rd, a board member reached out to one of our journalists and stated, quote, you get a raise if there is a restructure without James O'Keefe at Project Veritas.
00:28:03.000 I have a copy of the text message, and I'll give it to all of you.
00:28:08.000 I've redacted the name of the journalist.
00:28:10.000 The board member deleted the message, but not before our journalist took screenshots.
00:28:15.000 Good job, journalist.
00:28:17.000 Yeah, you got to be careful what you put in writing when you do that to Project Veritas.
00:28:22.000 Play Cut 31, please continue from the exclusive footage that is now being made public of James O'Keefe's farewell address.
00:28:28.000 On Sunday, February 5th, now that's Sunday, two days after the Friday, a board member requested my presence at his home.
00:28:36.000 He informed me, quote, you had nothing to do, James, with this Pfizer story, unquote.
00:28:44.000 Perplexed by this, I took out my iPad and showed him a video of myself confronting the Pfizer executive, which had 11 million views on YouTube.
00:28:53.000 He responded, quote, but that was after the undercover video had already been done.
00:28:58.000 So, look, we're piecing all of this together.
00:29:01.000 The work that James O'Keefe did at Project Veritas impacted all of us, our whole movement.
00:29:07.000 And we here remain some of the biggest fans of James O'Keefe and the work he did.
00:29:16.000 And all for what?
00:29:17.000 Why is this now all coming to light?
00:29:19.000 It really makes you wonder.
00:29:21.000 The entire speech is here, and we tweeted it out, the entire transcript of the speech.
00:29:25.000 It's 45 minutes.
00:29:27.000 You can read faster than you can listen, especially with his dramatic pauses.
00:29:30.000 So if you want to kind of flow through it, it's a 14-page document.
00:29:34.000 You could probably read it in seven to 10 minutes, which would take you longer to do that.
00:29:37.000 Okay, we're piecing this together for you.
00:29:39.000 James O'Keefe, play cut 32.
00:29:42.000 There were also discussions from a few staffers with donors in the boardroom.
00:29:46.000 Donors were listening to some of this, and some of these were sent directly to donors without my consent.
00:29:51.000 Donors who have no knowledge of my personal life and have no business asking questions about my personal life about girls I've dated in the past.
00:30:00.000 33 continues.
00:30:02.000 A fundraising staffer relayed, quote, concerns about my behaviors regarding videos where I, quote, literally chased a Twitter executive around New York.
00:30:11.000 By acclamation from all of you in 2022, that video about the Twitter chase was one of our most successful videos.
00:30:21.000 But yet, your colleagues in a boardroom were expressing concerns about it.
00:30:27.000 Every board member previously communicated their love of that video, but none pushed back in that moment when the staffer criticized it.
00:30:36.000 Continues on, and there's piece of evidence after piece of evidence here.
00:30:40.000 James says, for the last 13 years, I've been the same man, tough, hard-charging, driven, creative, exacting, disorganized.
00:30:46.000 I've tried to do a better job as CEO.
00:30:49.000 We've grown our revenue and our impact every year since 2011.
00:30:52.000 That is a fact.
00:30:54.000 He says, so what has changed in the last three weeks?
00:30:56.000 This is James O'Keefe's words.
00:30:58.000 The only thing that has changed is that we broke the biggest story in our organization's history during the last week of January in 2023 with over 50 million views.
00:31:07.000 Our video became a global phenomenon.
00:31:09.000 It was about Pfizer and one of their directors discussing mutating the COVID virus.
00:31:16.000 That's the only thing that has changed.
00:31:18.000 Suddenly, an unusual emergency happened just days after the story.
00:31:23.000 Skipping ahead, I'm just skipping through parts of it because I'm still skimming it with you.
00:31:27.000 All of a sudden, an emergency board meeting was called to basically confront James O'Keefe, but it wasn't even confrontational.
00:31:37.000 I'm going to read this here.
00:31:38.000 Our team is going through this really quick.
00:31:39.000 I then went off the grid as requested as forced PTO, exile.
00:31:43.000 Within a few days of going off the grid, I started receiving mixed calls and texts from the same board members and officers who dismissed me.
00:31:49.000 They informed me, the staff, they informed the staff that they're waiting to hear from me.
00:31:53.000 This is while I was commanded by a motion in a corporate board meeting to be on paid leave.
00:31:58.000 Then an officer of Project Veritas took a screenshot of my red receipts of his text message and distributed that screenshot to staff saying, quote, you owe your team a response.
00:32:06.000 Please allow communication.
00:32:08.000 This was sent during the time the board member demanded I be gone.
00:32:13.000 So they told James O'Keefe to go on leave.
00:32:15.000 He was not allowed to respond to anything.
00:32:17.000 And then they, according to James, went to the staff saying, James is ghosting you.
00:32:24.000 Please play cut 34.
00:32:26.000 A few days later, an officer sent an email to the board with bizarre hyperbole, an innuendo about certain expenses related to our business needs.
00:32:35.000 These included, and you can't make this up, that Project Veritas paid for James O'Keefe's down payment of his wedding.
00:32:43.000 I got to chuckle out of this.
00:32:45.000 I'm not married.
00:32:47.000 I've never been married.
00:32:49.000 Seems rather strange, doesn't it?
00:32:51.000 Look, James is an existential threat to the deep state.
00:32:55.000 He shook the matrix to its core.
00:32:57.000 He exposed the deeds of darkness and treachery and deceit, and he was good at it.
00:33:06.000 And the people closest to James seem to be motivated to oust him.
00:33:12.000 And again, I repeatedly have asked: is there evidence of a felony, a misdeed, a misdemeanor, a law being broken?
00:33:20.000 Is there something that couldn't be remedied with maybe James repaying personal funds?
00:33:27.000 If he did, let's just say, use some money for personal use.
00:33:31.000 Typically, you don't send that CEO into exile.
00:33:33.000 You say, hey, you have to repay it.
00:33:35.000 You don't get a tax deduction from it.
00:33:38.000 That's it.
00:33:39.000 That's how you do it.
00:33:40.000 And by the way, you also have to factor in.
00:33:42.000 He is the principal that is also able to drive a tremendous amount of interest and value.
00:33:49.000 Right after Project Veritas, right after the Pfizer clip, all of this begins to happen.
00:33:54.000 The document that James O'Keefe read from continues, My dear team, I want to go back to the beginning of what I said and express how important so many of you are to me, how I believe we have a long and bright future together and share my profound appreciation for so many of you.
00:34:09.000 James O'Keefe says, Yes, we've been held through hell together.
00:34:12.000 I'm sure we'll be through more.
00:34:13.000 And for that, therefore, we're brothers and sisters for life.
00:34:15.000 Nobody could take that away from us.
00:34:16.000 We have each other.
00:34:17.000 So I amend the statement from before that Veritas can only be defeated from the inside.
00:34:22.000 The only way they defeat us is to take our spirit.
00:34:24.000 And from the looks of things, many of us remain undefeated and unbroken.
00:34:28.000 So our mission continues on.
00:34:29.000 I'm not done.
00:34:30.000 The mission will perhaps take on a new name and it may no longer be called Project Veritas.
00:34:34.000 I'll need a bunch of people around me and I'll make sure you know how to find me.
00:34:38.000 Signed, James O'Keefe.
00:34:42.000 Play cut 35, James O'Keefe saying he's done.
00:34:44.000 So currently, I have no job at Project Veritas.
00:34:47.000 I have no position here based upon what the board has done.
00:34:50.000 So I'm announcing to you all that today on President's Day, I'm packing up my personal belongings.
00:34:55.000 I don't have the answers to why they've been doing this or why board members were going directly to employees to collect grievances, but I'm confident that those reasons and motivations will come to light.
00:35:09.000 To borrow an old expression, the public has a right to know what has happened here and why there was a concerted effort to remove me from the organization I founded the same week of our biggest story we ever had.
00:35:22.000 The enemy, yes, and I mean the enemy, the prince of darkness, the deceiver, the prosecutor, Satan, otherwise known as Satan, would love nothing more than to sow discord and division and confusion in the ranks of the organization that is most effective in revealing the darkness.
00:35:44.000 People build organizations.
00:35:46.000 Organizations don't build people.
00:35:49.000 So we need to have the back of the person that built it, and that is James O'Keefe.
00:35:53.000 And I stand expectant of the next couple moves.
00:35:59.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:36:00.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:36:04.000 Thank you so much for listening, and God bless.
00:36:09.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.