The Charlie Kirk Show - James O’Keefe is Out at Project Veritas— What Happened? with Kash Patel
Aired: 2023-02-20
Duration: 36:13


=== James O'Keefe Leaves Project Veritas (05:24) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey, everybody.
[00:00:00]  Today, the Charlie Kirk Show, wild what is happening at Project Veritas.
[00:00:05]  It's really something.
[00:00:06]  James O'Keefe is out at Project Veritas.
[00:00:09]  We play the exclusive tapes from his final speech to his employees at Project Veritas.
[00:00:16]  Email me your thoughts as always: freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:20]  Subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.
[00:00:22]  Open up your podcast application and type in Charlie Kirk Show.
[00:00:26]  Get involved with Turning Point USA today at tpusa.com.
[00:00:31]  I encourage all of you listening to start a high school chapter or a college chapter that is tpusa.com.
[00:00:40]  That is tpusa.com.
[00:00:43]  As always, you can email me directly: freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:47]  That is freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:50]  Buckle up, everybody.
[00:00:51]  Here we go.
[00:00:53]  Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
[00:00:54]  Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
[00:00:56]  I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
[00:01:00]  Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
[00:01:03]  I want to thank Charlie.
[00:01:04]  He's an incredible guy.
[00:01:05]  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]  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]  That's why we are here.
[00:01:25]  Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at AndrewandTodd.com.
[00:01:34]  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]  And so, it seems as if James O'Keefe is no longer at Project Veritas.
[00:01:54]  This is an ever-evolving story.
[00:01:59]  There's a lot that will be learned from this.
[00:02:02]  Again, I do not want to violate any confidentiality that I have.
[00:02:07]  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]  But here's what I can share with you: I can share with you based on everything that I've learned.
[00:02:18]  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]  Are there things that James could do differently?
[00:02:30]  Of course, obviously, there's things I could do differently.
[00:02:33]  But James O'Keefe is a hero of the movement.
[00:02:36]  And you better believe I've asked questions and asked questions and asked questions.
[00:02:40]  And some of it is just kind of silly, subjective management stuff.
[00:02:45]  Oh, James is mean, or James is tough to work for.
[00:02:48]  Get over yourself.
[00:02:49]  Seriously, go find somewhere else to work.
[00:02:52]  You are in a very intense, high-profile, high-stakes nonprofit organization.
[00:02:58]  This is not a daycare.
[00:03:00]  If you're a member of Generation Z, like, well, James O'Keefe is really mean.
[00:03:05]  Whatever, fine.
[00:03:06]  Go talk to a counselor.
[00:03:09]  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]  Project Veritas, the board of directors, seems to have just released a statement.
[00:03:24]  Here's what I could say: this is a very disappointing development, okay?
[00:03:28]  And it's disappointing for a variety of different reasons.
[00:03:31]  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]  Got actual wins, W's in the category for the fight for liberty.
[00:03:58]  Again, it's a little bit cruel to say this, but he metaphorically collected scalps.
[00:04:03]  I say metaphorically because the apparatchiks take everything I say literally, metaphorically, okay?
[00:04:08]  He got wins.
[00:04:09]  He was able to put points on the board.
[00:04:11]  So he has the biggest story in the history of Project Veritas Pfizer.
[00:04:17]  Four days later, there's an emergency board meeting called and they remove James O'Keefe.
[00:04:22]  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]  And I will say again: if I am missing something, please enlighten and educate me.
[00:04:43]  I say that to anybody involved in this situation.
[00:04:47]  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]  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]  It is a tragedy, actually.
[00:05:08]  And we're going to have James O'Keefe's back.
[00:05:11]  Again, if there is something I am missing in this situation in regards to O'Keefe, I'll be happy to be enlightened.

=== China Steals Our Innovation (02:32) ===

[00:05:24]  But I've certainly asked the tough questions of parties involved.
[00:05:27]  I've certainly asked, is there something I'm missing?
[00:05:31]  Is there a law that was broken?
[00:05:33]  Is there something that very much that could be incriminating?
[00:05:39]  And I have received radio silence.
[00:05:42]  And well, James is hard to work for.
[00:05:45]  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.
[00:05:55]  America has always been the world leader in invention, innovation, and technology.
[00:06:00]  Now China is poised to take its place as the next world leader in technology.
[00:06:05]  Don't miss the shocking new movie, Innovation Race, available now at SalemNow.com.
[00:06:10]  It exposes the truth: how China is exploiting weaknesses in our U.S. patent system, stealing our inventions and technology, and we are helping them do it.
[00:06:19]  China could soon control all of our 5G technology, which will eventually control all of our devices.
[00:06:26]  With the flip of a switch, the Chinese Communist Party could turn off our power grids, remotely drive your car off your road, or turn off your pacemaker.
[00:06:34]  Innovation Race is a clarion call to action.
[00:06:38]  Watch it today on SalemNow.com.
[00:06:40]  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.
[00:06:48]  In today's high technology world, there is no prize for second place.
[00:06:52]  See it for yourself.
[00:06:53]  Watch Innovation Race Now on Demand and buy the DVD at salemnow.com.
[00:06:58]  That is salemnow.com.
[00:07:00]  Watch InnovationRace at salemnow.com.
[00:07:06]  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]  Therefore, I'm not violating information.
[00:07:14]  James is no longer at Project Veritas.
[00:07:17]  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]  That distinction is actually very important, but that we are going to learn that together as more and more information comes.
[00:07:30]  Here's the essence of it.
[00:07:31]  Here's something I want to communicate.
[00:07:33]  We need Project Veritas, but we need James O'Keefe more.
[00:07:39]  There is no Project Veritas without James O'Keefe, period.
[00:07:43]  Now, some people say, well, Charlie, can Project Veritas continue their great work?
[00:07:48]  Maybe, maybe not.
[00:07:48]  That's not the point.
[00:07:49]  There's a couple angles I want to explore with you here, and then we'll get back to Ukraine.
[00:07:53]  I'm sorry, we took a complete detour today, but I think it's necessary.

=== No Veritas Without Keefe (10:56) ===

[00:07:57]  And I think many of you agree because O'Keefe has just been a phenomenal hero for our movement repeatedly.
[00:08:05]  He dug up so much stuff.
[00:08:06]  He shined a light on the darkness.
[00:08:09]  So, a couple of thoughts.
[00:08:11]  We need James O'Keefe.
[00:08:13]  And I refuse to believe, unless there was a felony that was committed, which I have zero evidence, by the way.
[00:08:19]  And I asked, I said, Is there something where we're all going to look like idiots for defending James O'Keefe?
[00:08:23]  Nope, nope, nope, nope.
[00:08:26]  Outside of that, well, he was cruel.
[00:08:29]  Well, he was mean, or he had a bunch of his staff go to one of his dancing performances of Oklahoma.
[00:08:38]  So, what?
[00:08:39]  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]  It'd be one thing if O'Keefe was just running Project Veritas and they weren't getting wins.
[00:09:06]  The most successful story in Project Veritas history was the Pfizer story.
[00:09:14]  And four days later, an emergency board meeting was called, and all the stuff starts to come.
[00:09:18]  Now, maybe those two things are unrelated, but that might not be it.
[00:09:24]  James looks like Jack Poseobic has his sources well sourced.
[00:09:28]  It's actually James O'Keefe was removed as CEO of Project Veritas.
[00:09:33]  He did not resign.
[00:09:34]  Let me just say, Jack Poseobic has very good sources.
[00:09:38]  This is a shame, and I'm not going to lay off of this.
[00:09:41]  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]  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]  I say this as somebody who runs a nonprofit, who has grown a nonprofit over a decade.
[00:10:41]  It's not easy.
[00:10:43]  Most nonprofits do not succeed and they do not hit critical mass.
[00:10:47]  I've been very blessed at Turning Point USA.
[00:10:49]  We've had a fabulous team over the last decade that has helped us run it and grow it.
[00:10:54]  Without them, we never would have been able to do it.
[00:10:57]  Tyler, Lauren, Andrew, I could go through the whole team.
[00:11:02]  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]  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]  They are in charge now.
[00:11:19]  Yeah, that's correct.
[00:11:21]  This is a blow.
[00:11:23]  James is going to rise and he'll be fine.
[00:11:25]  He'll figure it out.
[00:11:26]  He'll probably start his own deal or something.
[00:11:28]  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]  I'd like your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:11:43]  I know many of you have supported Project Veritas and you're saying we're communicating to the organization about this.
[00:11:52]  Someone says, Charlie, what is happening?
[00:11:53]  This is disturbing on many levels.
[00:11:55]  America is being destroyed from within.
[00:11:57]  And now, James, America needs James O'Keefe.
[00:11:59]  Amen.
[00:12:00]  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]  That makes me yawn.
[00:12:19]  Okay?
[00:12:20]  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]  That's the standard now?
[00:12:31]  Again, I've asked the tough questions and I have received nothing.
[00:12:36]  I just get kind of like, well, you'll see in all this.
[00:12:39]  Yeah, that's not good enough for me.
[00:12:41]  It isn't.
[00:12:42]  And let's just kind of remind ourselves what James was able to build.
[00:12:47]  Go after Pfizer.
[00:12:48]  FDA went after some of the most grotesque public school curriculum.
[00:12:54]  That's just, he just did that in his spare time.
[00:12:57]  And the biggest one of all, as I mentioned, was the Pfizer hit.
[00:13:01]  It makes you wonder how true was that Pfizer video.
[00:13:06]  Doesn't that make you think?
[00:13:07]  It makes you wonder: did James get too close to the sun?
[00:13:14]  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]  And so that's probably actually not the best analogy.
[00:13:25]  The point is that he got too close to the misdeeds in the shadows.
[00:13:35]  Someone says, Charlie, how do we contact Project Veritas?
[00:13:37]  How do we contact their board?
[00:13:39]  You guys can go to their website, projectveritas.com.
[00:13:44]  Be respectful, obviously.
[00:13:46]  Don't say anything bad and obviously don't do threats.
[00:13:49]  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]  That's really something.
[00:13:57]  You got to wonder if they're actually going to do that.
[00:13:58]  Remember, the FBI raided James O'Keefe.
[00:14:02]  FBI raids him.
[00:14:03]  He's in multiple lawsuits.
[00:14:06]  And yet, the person that he had to worry about the most were the people closest to him.
[00:14:14]  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]  Can you calm this down?
[00:14:28]  Can we sort this through?
[00:14:29]  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]  Getting a lot of emails here.
[00:14:43]  Someone says, Charlie, you can bet someone got the board of directors to force this decision.
[00:14:47]  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]  All right, well, we got to have his back.
[00:14:54]  We do, whatever he ends up doing.
[00:14:56]  And this is some, this is some serious stuff, I got to tell you.
[00:15:02]  You know, I've known James for a decade.
[00:15:06]  When I first got my start at Turning Point USA, I was 19, 20 years old.
[00:15:11]  James, I think, is only a little bit older than me.
[00:15:13]  I think he's like 34, 35, if not mistaken.
[00:15:15]  He's five or six years older than me.
[00:15:18]  I think so.
[00:15:19]  James is 38.
[00:15:20]  Wow.
[00:15:21]  Everyone's so much older than me.
[00:15:23]  Geez.
[00:15:24]  James is nine years older than me.
[00:15:26]  So that means that he would have been, okay, he would have been like 27 at the time.
[00:15:29]  He was always so sweet to me.
[00:15:30]  And boy, was he effective.
[00:15:32]  He has been effective.
[00:15:33]  And we don't even remember all the successful hits that he has had there.
[00:15:39]  Thankfully, I have a really bad back, so I would never dance like this.
[00:15:43]  So I guess that makes me safe from all of that.
[00:15:46]  I'm kidding.
[00:15:48]  Got to have James's back.
[00:15:49]  This is some breaking news.
[00:15:51]  James is out at Project Veritas.
[00:15:54]  It's a shame, to tragedy.
[00:15:56]  And we, the American people, you, the audience, I encourage you to not just sit idly by.
[00:16:02]  Express your opinion, voice your anger and your frustration, and most importantly, communicate your support for James O'Keefe.
[00:16:14]  The left wants us to turn our back on our fighters and our heroes when things get tough.
[00:16:19]  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]  And this is one of those moments.
[00:16:29]  James needs you.
[00:16:31]  James is very similar to Patton.
[00:16:33]  Remember when they dismissed Patton because he allegedly slapped the soldier on the face?
[00:16:37]  Not everyone is serious about winning wars.
[00:16:41]  Look, it is time to consider a rollover of that 401k into an IRA.
[00:16:47]  The investment world is completely different in 2023, and you cannot do the same thing as last year.
[00:16:52]  Woke companies are aggressively implementing ESG.
[00:16:56]  Interest rates are going up, and inflation is still lingering.
[00:16:59]  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]  I put my money with PAX, and guess what?
[00:17:09]  It's up 12% since last year, and that's while everyone else is down.
[00:17:13]  No joke.
[00:17:14]  Here's how you can connect with PAX.
[00:17:15]  Text Charlie to the number 74868.
[00:17:18]  That's it.
[00:17:19]  Just take out your phone.
[00:17:20]  Text Charlie, C-H-A-R-L-I-E to 74868.
[00:17:28]  So take out your phone.
[00:17:29]  Text Charlie to the number 74868 for biblical responsible investing.
[00:17:34]  Text Charlie to 74868.
[00:17:40]  Building things is hard.
[00:17:42]  It took James 10 years to build Project Veritas, and it took them a couple weeks to tear it down.
[00:17:47]  It's a good lesson for life.
[00:17:49]  Infrastructure is necessary, needs to be strengthened in more ways than one.
[00:17:55]  I could talk about this at length.
[00:17:57]  I have obviously deeply held opinions.
[00:18:00]  Okay, yeah, let's play Cut 23 just for a little reminder of James O'Keefe love.
[00:18:04]  We're just supposed to turn our back on this guy.
[00:18:07]  Oh, yeah, he's a theater guy, and he might have expensed a meal he shouldn't have.
[00:18:12]  Really?
[00:18:13]  That's the reason to get rid of him?
[00:18:15]  How weak are we?
[00:18:17]  Absent a felony.
[00:18:20]  There is no reason.
[00:18:21]  I mean, I shouldn't say that.
[00:18:22]  Absent a felony or some serious crime or misdemeanor of which no one is even alluding to.
[00:18:29]  Why is this even a conversation?
[00:18:30]  Fix it.
[00:18:31]  Solve it.
[00:18:32]  No, they're taking for granted the talent, the tenacity, the commitment of James O'Keefe.
[00:18:38]  He's special.
[00:18:39]  Play cut 23.
[00:18:41]  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]  You understand?
[00:18:46]  I've got emails between New York Times reporters and the Department of Justice.
[00:18:50]  Thanks to Mr. Thompson and Judicial Watch, we filed a FOIA request.

=== National Divorce or Unity (03:43) ===

[00:18:54]  Are you scared about what I might find?
[00:18:58]  Do you typically follow people?
[00:19:00]  Is that what you do?
[00:19:00]  You stalk people?
[00:19:01]  Yeah.
[00:19:02]  James.
[00:19:02]  I don't work in the world.
[00:19:03]  I don't work in symbiosis with the federal government.
[00:19:05]  James scared.
[00:19:06]  James.
[00:19:07]  How are you?
[00:19:07]  James.
[00:19:08]  James.
[00:19:09]  He's shaking.
[00:19:10]  He's shaking.
[00:19:13]  How does sunlight feel?
[00:19:15]  That was James going right into the darkness.
[00:19:18]  And it's very similar to Caesar.
[00:19:20]  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]  If only this happened on March 15th, it would have been really fitting.
[00:19:37]  A lot of people saying, Charlie, I contacted the website.
[00:19:39]  I'm doing all that.
[00:19:40]  Okay, we could touch on that.
[00:19:41]  I do want to talk about this Marjorie Taylor Greene story.
[00:19:43]  And I had this whole Ukraine thing that is just, it's vaporized at this point.
[00:19:50]  But I had a really interesting opinion on the whole thing.
[00:19:53]  And, okay, but Marjorie Taylor Greene is going viral.
[00:19:56]  It's going to be the number one news story right now everywhere because of what she tweeted.
[00:20:00]  She says, quote, we need a national divorce.
[00:20:04]  We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government.
[00:20:08]  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.
[00:20:16]  Okay.
[00:20:17]  So it depends what she means by a national divorce.
[00:20:20]  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]  However, we've never actually called for a national divorce on this program because I actually think that's really sad.
[00:20:38]  Now, if Marjorie Taylor Greene means a return to federalism, I totally support that.
[00:20:43]  I think she actually means that because it's not totally clear, because that's such an abstract term.
[00:20:48]  The left immediately is like, oh, it's going to be secession.
[00:20:50]  She's not saying that.
[00:20:52]  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]  No, that's not true.
[00:21:06]  I do know a couple.
[00:21:07]  Most divorces are messy.
[00:21:10]  Let's put it that way.
[00:21:11]  Because then it's who gets the kids?
[00:21:13]  How much are you going to pay me in child support?
[00:21:15]  The point being is, yeah, it's easy to say, okay, yeah, we're going to have a national divorce.
[00:21:19]  You think that would be seamless?
[00:21:22]  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]  So I do not actually have a heart for a national divorce.
[00:21:36]  We might be getting closer and closer to one, tragically.
[00:21:42]  It might end up being the only solution where the country who hates each other might be able to coexist.
[00:21:48]  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]  What actually unifies us, literally speaking a different language, have a different history.
[00:22:02]  But to get to the place where you say the situation necessitates a national divorce, depends what you mean by that.
[00:22:09]  If she means a restoration of federalism, I think that's perfectly responsible.
[00:22:14]  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]  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.

=== Donors and the Mission Continues (13:15) ===

[00:22:37]  Kash Patel is with us.
[00:22:39]  James O'Keefe is out at Project Veritas.
[00:22:41]  We've obtained some exclusive footage and we're going to play it right here.
[00:22:44]  Play cut 25, please.
[00:22:46]  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]  These are adjectives some people used: tough, hard-charging, driven, creative, exacting.
[00:23:00]  I have extremely high standards and somewhat disorganized.
[00:23:04]  I don't ask you how your Thanksgiving was, okay?
[00:23:08]  Or the names of your siblings, although a good leader probably should.
[00:23:13]  I don't do that.
[00:23:14]  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]  I haven't always been the most compassionate leader, and that is admittedly a fault of mine.
[00:23:29]  Something I need to work on.
[00:23:31]  Continue, cut 26, please.
[00:23:34]  So our mission continues on.
[00:23:38]  I'm not done.
[00:23:39]  The mission will perhaps take on a new name, and it may be no longer called Veritas.
[00:23:45]  Project Veritas.
[00:23:47]  I'll meet a bunch of people around me and I'll make sure you know how to find me.
[00:23:56]  So with that, I'm going to collect my things.
[00:23:59]  I'm going to load them into my car.
[00:24:01]  And I hope to see some of you soon.
[00:24:04]  And James O'Keefe is out.
[00:24:06]  I apologize for the choppiness of the clip.
[00:24:08]  Our team's doing the best job they can.
[00:24:09]  We just received this footage.
[00:24:10]  We're tweeting it out in real time.
[00:24:12]  So just Cash, more broadly, feel free to comment on this if you want.
[00:24:15]  Let's just focus on the movement needs James O'Keefe.
[00:24:18]  Your thoughts.
[00:24:19]  No, absolutely.
[00:24:20]  Look, I've known James for a long time.
[00:24:22]  We just shared the stage together at Judicial Watch Conference, me, him and Devin Nunes.
[00:24:26]  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]  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]  And so I believe knowing James and his vast organization and resources, he is going to continue.
[00:24:54]  It'll have a new name, but we will see that effort continue.
[00:24:57]  Shame.
[00:24:57]  Play cut 28 of O'Keefe learns about how he got fired.
[00:25:00]  There were tactical disagreements about the boldness of approaches soliciting donations.
[00:25:06]  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]  That advice ran contrary to everything I knew to be true in my 13 years of fundraising.
[00:25:21]  But that conflict was even more fundamental and essentially boiled down to this.
[00:25:25]  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]  I have donors in order to build.
[00:25:35]  That's what I believed.
[00:25:37]  And I felt like we had a conflict of visions.
[00:25:39]  We measure our success in terms of what we produce, not just in terms of our wallets.
[00:25:46]  That was a pretty fundamental conflict, I felt.
[00:25:49]  So continue here.
[00:25:50]  Again, we're trying to make sense of all this as well, but that's James explaining why he was terminated.
[00:25:55]  And I have the whole transcript of his speech, by the way, that we are going to tweet.
[00:25:59]  Play cut 29, please.
[00:26:01]  He continues.
[00:26:02]  This was a 45-minute speech.
[00:26:03]  Our team's doing a great job going through it on hyper speed for you guys.
[00:26:07]  Play cut 29.
[00:26:08]  This is breaking news.
[00:26:09]  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]  I tried to deal with it privately, but I was unsuccessful.
[00:26:20]  And the disagreement boiled over publicly in a staff meeting.
[00:26:24]  The next day, this individual refused to resign, so I fired him.
[00:26:28]  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]  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]  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]  Cash, 20 seconds.
[00:27:08]  That is a tragic reality of how boards supersede the traditional purpose of a mission.
[00:27:15]  And unfortunately for James, they took him out.
[00:27:19]  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]  And you have to just keep the mission first and fighting on.
[00:27:28]  I think James is going to do that.
[00:27:29]  I think we're going to see him in short order somewhere.
[00:27:32]  Cash, thank you.
[00:27:33]  Thank you for being agile and support Cash, everybody.
[00:27:35]  He's terrific.
[00:27:36]  Thank you, Cash.
[00:27:37]  Thanks, guys.
[00:27:41]  James O'Keefe's entire speech is now public.
[00:27:45]  Let's play cut 30 from his remarks.
[00:27:48]  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]  I have a copy of the text message, and I'll give it to all of you.
[00:28:08]  I've redacted the name of the journalist.
[00:28:10]  The board member deleted the message, but not before our journalist took screenshots.
[00:28:15]  Good job, journalist.
[00:28:17]  Yeah, you got to be careful what you put in writing when you do that to Project Veritas.
[00:28:22]  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]  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]  He informed me, quote, you had nothing to do, James, with this Pfizer story, unquote.
[00:28:44]  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]  He responded, quote, but that was after the undercover video had already been done.
[00:28:58]  So, look, we're piecing all of this together.
[00:29:01]  The work that James O'Keefe did at Project Veritas impacted all of us, our whole movement.
[00:29:07]  And we here remain some of the biggest fans of James O'Keefe and the work he did.
[00:29:16]  And all for what?
[00:29:17]  Why is this now all coming to light?
[00:29:19]  It really makes you wonder.
[00:29:21]  The entire speech is here, and we tweeted it out, the entire transcript of the speech.
[00:29:25]  It's 45 minutes.
[00:29:27]  You can read faster than you can listen, especially with his dramatic pauses.
[00:29:30]  So if you want to kind of flow through it, it's a 14-page document.
[00:29:34]  You could probably read it in seven to 10 minutes, which would take you longer to do that.
[00:29:37]  Okay, we're piecing this together for you.
[00:29:39]  James O'Keefe, play cut 32.
[00:29:42]  There were also discussions from a few staffers with donors in the boardroom.
[00:29:46]  Donors were listening to some of this, and some of these were sent directly to donors without my consent.
[00:29:51]  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]  33 continues.
[00:30:02]  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]  By acclamation from all of you in 2022, that video about the Twitter chase was one of our most successful videos.
[00:30:21]  But yet, your colleagues in a boardroom were expressing concerns about it.
[00:30:27]  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]  Continues on, and there's piece of evidence after piece of evidence here.
[00:30:40]  James says, for the last 13 years, I've been the same man, tough, hard-charging, driven, creative, exacting, disorganized.
[00:30:46]  I've tried to do a better job as CEO.
[00:30:49]  We've grown our revenue and our impact every year since 2011.
[00:30:52]  That is a fact.
[00:30:54]  He says, so what has changed in the last three weeks?
[00:30:56]  This is James O'Keefe's words.
[00:30:58]  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]  Our video became a global phenomenon.
[00:31:09]  It was about Pfizer and one of their directors discussing mutating the COVID virus.
[00:31:16]  That's the only thing that has changed.
[00:31:18]  Suddenly, an unusual emergency happened just days after the story.
[00:31:23]  Skipping ahead, I'm just skipping through parts of it because I'm still skimming it with you.
[00:31:27]  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]  I'm going to read this here.
[00:31:38]  Our team is going through this really quick.
[00:31:39]  I then went off the grid as requested as forced PTO, exile.
[00:31:43]  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]  They informed me, the staff, they informed the staff that they're waiting to hear from me.
[00:31:53]  This is while I was commanded by a motion in a corporate board meeting to be on paid leave.
[00:31:58]  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]  Please allow communication.
[00:32:08]  This was sent during the time the board member demanded I be gone.
[00:32:13]  So they told James O'Keefe to go on leave.
[00:32:15]  He was not allowed to respond to anything.
[00:32:17]  And then they, according to James, went to the staff saying, James is ghosting you.
[00:32:24]  Please play cut 34.
[00:32:26]  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]  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]  I got to chuckle out of this.
[00:32:45]  I'm not married.
[00:32:47]  I've never been married.
[00:32:49]  Seems rather strange, doesn't it?
[00:32:51]  Look, James is an existential threat to the deep state.
[00:32:55]  He shook the matrix to its core.
[00:32:57]  He exposed the deeds of darkness and treachery and deceit, and he was good at it.
[00:33:06]  And the people closest to James seem to be motivated to oust him.
[00:33:12]  And again, I repeatedly have asked: is there evidence of a felony, a misdeed, a misdemeanor, a law being broken?
[00:33:20]  Is there something that couldn't be remedied with maybe James repaying personal funds?
[00:33:27]  If he did, let's just say, use some money for personal use.
[00:33:31]  Typically, you don't send that CEO into exile.
[00:33:33]  You say, hey, you have to repay it.
[00:33:35]  You don't get a tax deduction from it.
[00:33:38]  That's it.
[00:33:39]  That's how you do it.
[00:33:40]  And by the way, you also have to factor in.
[00:33:42]  He is the principal that is also able to drive a tremendous amount of interest and value.
[00:33:49]  Right after Project Veritas, right after the Pfizer clip, all of this begins to happen.
[00:33:54]  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]  James O'Keefe says, Yes, we've been held through hell together.
[00:34:12]  I'm sure we'll be through more.
[00:34:13]  And for that, therefore, we're brothers and sisters for life.
[00:34:15]  Nobody could take that away from us.
[00:34:16]  We have each other.
[00:34:17]  So I amend the statement from before that Veritas can only be defeated from the inside.
[00:34:22]  The only way they defeat us is to take our spirit.
[00:34:24]  And from the looks of things, many of us remain undefeated and unbroken.
[00:34:28]  So our mission continues on.
[00:34:29]  I'm not done.
[00:34:30]  The mission will perhaps take on a new name and it may no longer be called Project Veritas.
[00:34:34]  I'll need a bunch of people around me and I'll make sure you know how to find me.
[00:34:38]  Signed, James O'Keefe.
[00:34:42]  Play cut 35, James O'Keefe saying he's done.
[00:34:44]  So currently, I have no job at Project Veritas.
[00:34:47]  I have no position here based upon what the board has done.
[00:34:50]  So I'm announcing to you all that today on President's Day, I'm packing up my personal belongings.
[00:34:55]  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]  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]  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]  People build organizations.
[00:35:46]  Organizations don't build people.
[00:35:49]  So we need to have the back of the person that built it, and that is James O'Keefe.

=== Expecting Next Moves (00:19) ===

[00:35:53]  And I stand expectant of the next couple moves.
[00:35:59]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:36:00]  Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:36:04]  Thank you so much for listening, and God bless.
[00:36:09]  For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.