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The Sage Steele Show
James O'Keefe Exposes the TRUTH about Epstein | Sage Steele Show | EP 76
01:13:52
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- [00:00]
A
James o'. Keefe. He is arguably one of the most fearless journalists that we've ever seen and I think probably the most feared as well. His undercover videos, I'm sure you've seen them. They have exposed so many people, from elected officials to company executives, CEOs. Think Pfizer, think Planned Parenthood. And now he is pushing really hard to find out the truth about Jeffrey Epstein and why those files still have not been released. All this began with the company that he actually founded, Project Veritas. And after his ouster from Project Veritas, which is still being litigated by the way, we go deep on that. It continues today. His work does with his new company, o' Keefe Media Group. Omg, this guy is a shark. He is intense and I really appreciated him sharing so much, including how the loss of his friend Charlie Kirk is affecting him spiritually. I think this episode is as memorable of an episode as we've done here on the Sage Deal Show. So I hope you enjoy it with the one and only James Okey. Gosh, so many people know who you are and love, love, love your work and then you agree to come on my show and it's like you dive a little bit deeper. And this is what I was not surprised to read, but loved it. I feel like this is important for people to understand your. Why this is a quote, I believe. Do we trust people? It is my mission to clean up society through transparency, accountability, and the truth. Yep.
- [01:33]
B
Yes.
- [01:34]
A
Has that always been the reason why you do what you do? Is that a recent mission statement? Like it? I feel like it covers everything.
- [01:43]
B
It's comes down to like, one word, like justice. Like, when I was a teenager, I genuinely felt in my heart that something was wrong with the media and how information is being portrayed. So I wanted there to be like, truth and justice. And I think accountability, it kind of relates to that. You have to have. Without accountability, there can be no justice. But the bottom, bottom line is there needs to be fairness and justice, and there cannot be those things if people are not informed. So in order to create a society where we have some semblance of justice and people are electing the right people to create the right policies, people have to have information. It all comes down to getting information. People think justice is about putting people in jail. They don't like.
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A
Right.
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B
Well, they want to jail me and you and we want to jail them. And there's the us versus them is not. That's not what I'm talking about. I want to. I want a world where people can have real information based upon evidence. So as a young man, for some reason I was watching Fox 5 News in New York. I was from New Jersey, and I have a television set in my bedroom and I. This is in like 2000. I was in 10th grade, right when before they took off the antennae from the twin towers so that you still would get, you still would have like Channel 5 and Channel 7 on your TV set. I am a millennial and I guess in my last generation we didn't have cell phones in high school. And I would watch local TV news and I would just get angry at what I was watching. I just felt maybe people needed to have the real information. So then I would read the newspaper every day as an, as a 17, 18 year old guy in the school cafeteria. And that's how I became.
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A
Okay, I'm picturing you reading the newspaper in the school cafeteria. Were you sitting alone?
- [03:33]
B
Yes.
- [03:33]
A
Were you ostracized from the kids? Were you kind of a loner?
- [03:36]
B
I was always a loner. And I always sit at the, you know, the proverbial table of the, what are they called? The people in school who are not losers, but just nerdy. Nerdy or whatever. The table of the people that weren't part of the. In group.
- [03:51]
A
Yeah, not in the clique and that.
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B
And then I was reading the newspaper and particularly as a freshman in college, every, every day for three hours, I would read the New York Times, Star Ledger and USA Today front to back.
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A
Oh my goodness. Mom and dad.
- [04:03]
B
Did they in the news?
- [04:05]
A
I mean, it's. If this happened and started really in high school when you were much younger, I mean, is it coincidence based on how you're raised?
- [04:13]
B
It's certainly. My dad is the work ethic of my father, but he would do manual labor, rental properties cleanup. I worked with him, my grandfather, and they maybe they had a little bit of a, an aversion to the government and bureaucracy because it prevented them from doing certain projects. But I didn't get this from, from them and my sister, who's artistic, who's an architect. Neither of us seem to inherit this from our mother and father. So this is a deeper question of where is it nature versus nurture? Where do you get these things? We can explore that. But no, I don't think neither my mother or father are really political or journalistic, so.
- [04:51]
A
So how do they handle what you do today?
- [04:53]
B
They're very worried.
- [04:54]
A
Yeah.
- [04:55]
B
Especially what happened to me two, three years ago with the getting fired from Project Veritas, the company I founded. They were the one to two anchors in my life as a 38 year old man. Losing my own creation was extremely difficult. And they're my best friends, if you will. My father's my best friend. Not everyone can say that. Yeah, that's awesome in New Jersey. So that was. They were there for me and I think they were just feeling the pain to. I'm not a parent yet. I hope to be but they say that as a parent it's harder on the parent when the child goes through something that traumatic. So they felt it when the FBI came raiding me or my own organization firing me. They felt it deeper than I did. Which was interesting.
- [05:39]
A
Yeah. From personal experience. Similar when I got canceled. Suspended initially by ESPN and Disney for my comments about COVID I mean at the time I was 48 years old and I was on the ground like sobbing when. When everybody was coming at you. And I didn't have the FBI investigator four years ago.
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B
Four years ago I didn't have the.
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A
FBI literally like this week four years ago I didn't have the FBI coming after me. But I had social media and then you know, woke everybody including my own bosses and company and my mom and dad are the ones that literally lifted me off the ground.
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B
Are they still alive?
- [06:18]
A
Yes, yes, by the grace of God. They are my best friends as well. You know, I mean they've picked me.
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B
Up a beautiful thing that came out of horrible situation.
- [06:28]
A
That's the key. But. And then I have three kids ages 23 to 19 and so I can also say that like I would, I would die for them. I'll do. And then when they're hurting, we hurt 10 times more. So I'm trying to put myself in your parents shoes. When it's one thing to get fired from a job company, it's another thing when the FBI is coming after you.
- [06:52]
B
That wasn't as hard as getting fired.
- [06:54]
A
From like really reverse it.
- [06:55]
B
I would say it was 10x more difficult to get fired from Project Veritas. We can explore this. Yeah, but yeah, I mean going back to what you said about your parents, I was literally in the same situation. I couldn't like my mom had to feed me soup. It was hard. I hate to say this because I'm sure my enemies could take pleasure in it, but I'm being honest, I'm being vulnerable. It was difficult. I mean that was escorted out of the building you built with my sister was the architect. It was a create a creation of mine that I built up and you know, we rebuilt and we do it all over again. That's life. That's the Greek. What is the name of the guy that rolls the boulder up the hill repeatedly? I don't think it's Atlas. I think it's. It'll come to me. But that's kind of like life. You. You have mountaintops and valleys, but in that valley. My mother and father were really there for me. And I came home that night, drove home from New York, where our office was, to New Jersey, where they live. And I. And we just, just. I remember we just sort of hugged each other and just cried. Just brutal, you know.
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A
But do you remember what they said to you when you told them what was happening?
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B
I came home to New Jersey and my mother made one comment. There's a lot of things that were said, but I remember vividly sitting on that couch. You know, we all have these things in life where you're going through trauma, everyone's been through pain. And she actually said to me, it wasn't sustainable, James, which was a really wise and discerning thing for her to say. And she was absolutely right. This was. I founded this group called Project Veritas in when I was 24. And I think the mistake that I made was I didn't really surround myself with some of the best people. I kind of took an attitude of everyone is allowed around me. And I think you have to be very careful who you choose to be your sidekick when you're taking on the most powerful people in the world. That's a lesson learned. So my mother said, with all those people that you had around you and you're raising millions of dollars to help them, it had to come to an end. There had to be a change at some point. And it was a very. This is. She said this in this moment of severe acute pain when I just got home. But I remember hearing her say that, and it provided some comfort, even though it was brutal, because she's right.
- [09:29]
A
You hadn't thought of it before.
- [09:32]
B
This was a very harsh lesson. You know, perhaps a coming of age story at 38 years old, but we're always learning. But I could say. I think you could say I lost my naivete.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And my innocence. At 38 years old. I realized, wow, people are really out for themselves and all they care about is money and power. I had this very naive vision of human beings that they're all operate the way that me and my dad operate, that we all want what's best. Like Charlie Kirk, who's just killed, is an example of a man who wants to lift people up. Yeah, people are not like that. Most people want to. Are envious and they want to hurt you to get ahead. And because I was the leader and the founder and the boss, no one was ever going to be fully honest with me about what their intentions actually are. So that naivete came crashing down on February 6, 2023, when people were stabbing. Stabbing me in the back like the Roman paintings of Julius Caesar to get. To get money and power out of an entity that's about justice. So, yeah, at that moment, everything came crashing down.
- [10:44]
A
Why did they fire you?
- [10:46]
B
The reason they stated or the real reason?
- [10:48]
A
Both.
- [10:50]
B
The reason they stated was that I was a bad. A mean boss, tough on my employees. I took. I chartered helicopters, and I would, you know, with it, with this budget, we shouldn't be spending money like that. And I had modes of transportation. I had a driver chauffeur me around. And it was a. It was a. A variety of strange grievances. I stole a pregnant woman's sandwich once. Bizarre grievances. Pretext used by a board member who felt that the organization would be. Had reached a point in its life cycle where it would be better off without me. The real reason is, it was a confluence of factors, really, but this. This. This guy on the board was, according to some of the donors that funded me, they said that he was extremely jealous of me and he wanted to be me. And it's very dangerous to have someone on your board like that.
- [11:51]
A
That's scary. And how did it end?
- [11:55]
B
Well, it's still ongoing.
- [11:56]
A
You. You. They walked you out?
- [11:58]
B
They walked me out of the building, cut my credit card in half and did not give me a paycheck. They. They indefinitely. They indefinitely suspended me without pay, which in New York State is a form of constructive firing. They basically fired me from the job without firing me. And what happened next is a long story, but the short of it is the bottom line is I started a new company a week later.
- [12:25]
A
A week later?
- [12:26]
B
OMG. Yeah. February 17th, they fired me. On February 10th, one of my advisors said, james, you got to pick yourself up, go to your garage and start all over again. And it called omg. O' Keefe Media Group, they sued me to my own company, sued me to stop me from doing this new company brought me to court a summer later to get an emergency injunction to shut me down. I defeated that injunction and then countersued them for defamation and all those. And I deposed, meaning under oath, deposition on videotape of every single board member who did this to me. And we discovered in those depositions just a few months ago that, in fact, the board members were soliciting money from donors to invest in pharmaceutical companies, which we believe is a conflict of interest because we were investigating Pfizer. So now we know the rest of the story, and hopefully we achieve a resolution or justice in all this.
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A
I saw what you said about this as it's ongoing. You want justice. You don't want revenge. You want justice.
- [13:34]
B
Difference between.
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A
Very big difference. What does that look like, though? What does justice, true justice, look like?
- [13:39]
B
That's a really great question. That's a really. That question can fill the entirety of this discussion. It's not an easy answer, but the administration of justice, my view, my belief, because I have a different answer than most people. I think justice is for people to.
- [13:57]
A
Know the truth, just like your mission statement.
- [14:00]
B
That's all justice is to me. People debate me on that every day. They don't think that's justice. I think justice is people knowing the truth and the darkness about who these people really are. That's. That's my version. Because people say, oh, Keith, what outcome do you want? Like, it's some type of power dynamic. And you know what my response is? I want accuracy. I want to spell their names correctly. And when they have investments in these companies, I want to show the investments they have. That's my justice. That's. That's the answer.
- [14:33]
A
Do you expect to ever hear personally from these people, who. You helped them get to the point where they are. This was your baby. This was your company.
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B
I. I did. What do you mean by hear from them? Like, they reach out to me, an.
- [14:49]
A
Acknowledgement, and maybe it's long in the future. I don't know, an apology. Ownership, accountability. I mean, I'm sure you were friends with some of these people, too. It wasn't just a working relationship.
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B
And so there's two things there. The friendship with these people. And then what do I expect from. Let me tackle the friendship. I think the word friend is a way, way overused term.
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A
I do, too.
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B
And I don't mean this is not about what you said, but man alive, like you have. You're lucky in life if you have two friends. May. I think I have two. My father and I won't mention the other individual because he's a private person. You're lucky if you have one or two. And you have. You have the roots and the branches and the leaves. And most people are leave friends or branch friends. And then you have the root friends. You're lucky if you have one or two. So these people are probably like leaves.
- [15:38]
A
Okay.
- [15:39]
B
That maybe I thought were branches. And then addressing your other comment, what was the other thing you said?
- [15:45]
A
You know, do I expect accountability? And for these people who you helped.
- [15:49]
B
Uplift to that pen up some form of penitence or remorse or self introspection, self examination. And what I have found with humans is that the vast majority of people that I bust, and I'm in the business of exposing busting bad guys, 99.9% of them don't go, I'm so sorry. You got me, I did something wrong. You're talking about like in religion, you know, some form of repentance. And I don't just. I just don't think that's what people do. It's not. That's been my experience. They double down, particularly with me. So let me give you something less abstract. One of the, one of the guys who we caught doing all this unethical behavior, one of the board members we found out was sleeping with one of the employees, which is totally illegal and wrong. We found that out in a deposition. That'll come out soon. He actually said in the deposition, and we are going to be publishing this in a month from now, he actually said these words, quote, this is under oath on camera. He didn't say, I'm sorry, we did wrong. He said, I want to carve James O. Keefe's heart out of his chest and eat it with the blood ripping down my face. He actually said this under oath. It was so crazy. The lawyer spit out his coffee. Have you ever seen anything like this in my life? Yeah, he actually said it.
- [17:17]
A
So he's not stable. I mean, if you're going to say that, by the way, I think a.
- [17:21]
B
Lot of people in politics and in our government are not stable human beings. I think they're narcissists. I think they're, they're greedy. I think they're self interested. They're sick people. They have something wrong with them. There's a lot of that going on. And when you point that out about them, it tends to bring out more demons out of them. This is just a case.
- [17:43]
A
They're also not used to being held accountable. And so then it's foreign. And there's probably a bit of a meltdown, freak out going on internally because they realize they're about to be exposed.
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B
They want to destroy the mirror. So if you're, if your raison d' etre is to expose the darkness in others, in other words, you literally hold up a Mirror. Think of it literally, like, I'm going to hold a mirror up to you. What they're going to do is they're going to attack the mirror. Literally try to destroy the mirror for fear that the mirror is going to expose the darkness in them. So you might say that this is a little unusual in my case, because of what I stand for, which is literally publishing the sins of others. So that's what they're going to do. It's just human. It's human nature.
- [18:31]
A
So we will wait and see how that gets resolved. In the meantime, if you can compartmentalize, which I know you're very good at, you have to. To put aside how it has ended or is ending at Project Veritas and look at the incredible work that you've done.
- [18:48]
B
Thank you.
- [18:49]
A
I mean it. I mean, that's why I'm genuinely saying that I've been a fan, because as a journalist, sports, very different. Not the goal. Journalism it is. And more so today than ever before. Um, that's my previous life now, though. But from the journalism perspective, I've watched you, and I'm like, my goodness, there are so few people willing to go to those great lengths to tell the truth. Planned Parenthood, you know, almost 20 years ago, those things, certainly Pfizer more recently, and everything in between. You've. You've. You've changed the way companies behave. You've changed our outlook and our perspective. While watching anything, what are you the most proud of? And give me specifics from your time there with the company that you created.
- [19:35]
B
Thank you. And I'm now going to take my feet down.
- [19:38]
A
How long did it last, guys?
- [19:39]
B
I don't know.
- [19:41]
A
18 minutes.
- [19:42]
B
It's not the reason you think it's because my feet. Feet are falling asleep. 23 minutes, the little tingly things happening. And my ankles. I need to do yoga more than, sorry, I lift the weights, but I need to be flexible.
- [19:53]
A
Stretch.
- [19:54]
B
Need to stretch and drink water. Another great question. You're a good journalist because you ask good questions.
- [19:59]
A
Thank you.
- [20:00]
B
So I admire people who ask good questions. What am I most proud of? I'm like, on the story front.
- [20:07]
A
Yeah.
- [20:09]
B
I would say the most. The most consequential investigation we ever did. And what I'm probably most proud of is the 2016 story that we did on Democracy Partners and Bob Kramer in the Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton election. This was a series of undercover investigations. Took us nine months. And we, we exposed these officials within this group that were bragging about fomenting violence at. At Trump rallies And this led to the resignation of this guy. Bob Creamer is his name. He was closely tied with the dnc, and it led to a mention by President Trump in the debate in Nevada in front of, like, 80 million people. This was the most consequential story I've ever done. And this is nine years ago. I was at the debate. I was on the red carpet. It was a weird world back then. Trump wasn't elected.
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A
Right.
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B
I wrote a whole book about it called American Pravda, and I think there were probably like, 12 to 15 things that occurred. But if you took any one of those things away, Trump wouldn't have been elected. I think if we didn't do that story, Amongst the other 13 things, Trump wouldn't have been president of the United States. And this was before the Deep State kind of hit back with all their stuff they did in Russia. Russia, Russia and FBI coming after us. But I was very proud of the undercover work that we did because it takes a long time. And like my friend David Delight, who did the Planned parenthood sting in 2015, it took him three years. So these days in the media, and you're in the media business, it's. It's like. It's like you get to. You spend like an hour on something or a day, like nine months on one story. Yeah, it's very rare. And it's rare because it's not profitable. It doesn't make money. So that's why we've always been a nonprofit. So I would say, in terms of stories, that's the one I'm most proud of.
- [22:04]
A
And when you're sitting there and you hear President Trump mention that specifically, what went through your mind?
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B
I was literally on the edge of my seat in Las Vegas, Nevada, in front of Hillary Clinton. The video's on YouTube. And I think he said something. If you look at the clips, if you see on my rallies, if you look at the videos, I was thinking, I just said, please, please say the word Project Veritas. Please. And he didn't say the word Project Veritas. He talked about the story. And I was like. I was like, literally, while he was talking, I'm like, just say the word. Either Veritas or James o', Keefe, because it would be really helpful.
- [22:38]
A
Yes.
- [22:38]
B
Our marketing and fundraising for the story. And he talked about it, and then probably couldn't remember.
- [22:43]
A
He probably tried to.
- [22:44]
B
He was like, if you look at my rallies, look at what they did in Chicago with Bob Kramer. And Hillary goes, I don't want to engage in Your conspiracy theories, Donald. And he's like, no, they, they pay people to foment values. If you look at the clips he said, the clips, the videos that came out, and I was like, please say the words, Project Ferret. I was literally on the edge of my seat sitting there and he didn't say it. I was like, but still, cnn, msnbc, Megyn Kelly, Fox News were all in the booth behind me and they were all talking about, at the top of the hour, that story.
- [23:20]
A
And they went and found the clips, right?
- [23:22]
B
Oh, yeah. Anderson Cooper filled a full hour long segment with those videos. And they were very fair. It was a very good story. I would say that was the proudest achievement of my life. And I think the world has changed.
- [23:36]
A
Yes.
- [23:37]
B
Since then, I think the media has changed. Everything's changed, obviously. But that was incredible. Incredible moment.
- [23:42]
A
You've had me in tears a few times too.
- [23:45]
B
In tears.
- [23:46]
A
Yeah, yeah. With the hidden camera and with Planned Parenthood. And when you, when you stop ignoring things that are out there, that you're like, yeah, maybe, but yeah, I don't want to go there. And then you go there and you listen and you watch and you absorb it. And it's devastating to know what is going on and what is masked and what is being hidden.
- [24:10]
B
To the Lila Rose, she. I was not really versed in the issue and conflicted about the abortion issue, but I do know that at the time I advised her, I said, my advice is to not make it about the actual moral issue of when life begins, but just expose the fraud. And if they're lying about age of consent, if a girl is 14, that's statutory rape. And that's the angle that we took. When I went in there in 2007, I had a camcorder and she just said she has a 23 year old boyfriend. And, and they said they told her to, quote, just figure out a birth date that works. And I don't know anything, unquote, Planned Parenthood advising this. And regardless of what your view is on that, I'm sure your audience has mixed views. Some people are pro life, some people think life begins at conception or whatever the case may be. I think we can all agree it's wrong to, to, to cover up statutory rape. And the second thing we did was call up Planned Parenthood and said, we support Margaret Sanger who believed in racial eugenics and exterminating the black population. She used the N word, not what I just said. And, and then the vice president of Planned Parenthood goes, yeah, that's very Exciting. We love Margaret Sanger too. And they fired her. So it was kind of gonzo Hunter S. Thompson journalism where we're kind of exposing the, you know, the root cause of these things. That was my very beginning of my career.
- [25:41]
A
Yeah. And that was 06 07. So are you nervous as you're walking into that Planned Parenthood posing as a. The 23 year old?
- [25:50]
B
Another great question. Does it. The nerves of doing it, all of.
- [25:53]
A
This, I mean, you are putting yourself at risk.
- [25:55]
B
Every time I think my adrenal glands are gone at this point I need to go to the doctor, if any, if there are any doctors watching this. And I can restore my adrenaline after a certain point. In the beginning, the extreme. Like anything in life, you have extreme highs and lows and then over time you just. I would say I'm actually calmest. I'm a little messed up. I'm calmest doing these types of things. I am out of my element when I'm at some cocktail party at wherever I am and people are fake and phony and these people carry so much phoniness in the world. But when I'm in my element, I'm confronting a bad guy or chasing a Disney executive down Los Angeles Boulevard, or I'm posing as this or that. I feel like I'm in my element. I'm in the real arena. This is the real that that makes you feel. To quote that rap song. It's just, it's real. But in the ordinary course of human events, I would say that I actually struggle more. I'm being honest. In the beginning, oh yeah, it was difficult. But you, you will yourself to do it much like you are in playing a role in a, in a, in a theater theatrical play. You get up on stage, take a deep breath and you will yourself to confront that bad guy or you will yourself to pretend to be a 23 year old or you know, pose as a 14 year old girl. You force yourself like a light switch, like you're flicking on a switch in a room. I am going to do this. And then, and you kind of change your, your, your, your socks, so to speak, and you're now you're doing it. So like any muscle, you exercise over time, it's not difficult. And to now where I'm now it's, I'm more comfortable doing it than I am doing other things.
- [27:40]
A
Okay. That's the truth. That's fascinating. So the wannabe psychiatrist in me says, wait a minute. You're more comfortable when you're not being yourself. When you are Acting when you are posing to be someone else.
- [27:56]
B
I wouldn't put it that way, because it's reality. It's, it's, it's. You're confronting liars and you're. You're able to be very direct with a liar. Whereas in civil society, if you see a phony woman at a cocktail party, you're not going to say you're a fraud. You would never do such a thing. But you think it.
- [28:13]
A
Yeah, I think.
- [28:15]
B
But you probably think it all the time, so why don't you say it out loud? Because, because it's not a. It's not proper to tell the absolute truth. It's not proper. I do the improper thing. I do the. The, The. The. Not the. I mean, that's the question. What is proper? And now we get into a deeper conversation about why aren't we willing to tell the truth? Yeah. So I feel very.
- [28:37]
A
When you're rooted in telling the truth, in that moment when you're masked.
- [28:40]
B
Let's give. Yes. Let's give a less abstract example. Here you are on video and you're. You're making these statements about how that you. Mr. State Department guy. Sorry, we did recently, about how you're dating a Chinese individual who's probably a spy, and that that's a violation of State Department regulations. And he goes, that's not me. I didn't say that. That's not you. You're denying your identity, sir? No, I didn't. I, I have no comment. No, you actually. That is your comment, sir. So that's me being real. I'm not acting. I'm. I'm being real. I'm confronting this individual. It's just very confrontational and frankly, quite uncomfortable for most people. Yeah.
- [29:18]
A
That is so fascinating. What is the most risky.
- [29:23]
B
The most risky.
- [29:24]
A
The most risky thing you've done? I guess in that, in that department of. You mean like going into someone else. Yeah, Posing to be someone else, confronting somebody who could hurt you.
- [29:40]
B
The greatest risks have been legal, like using the legal system. Like General Flynn, who I'm interviewing on Tuesday live for my show, My Price Is My Life. He wrote a book, and General Flynn writes that the whole world, the legal system, just comes down upon you and it's hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal bills just when you get sued. So where is this money going to come from?
- [30:07]
A
Yeah.
- [30:07]
B
And if you have a family, which I don't, but if you have children and a wife, it's its own type of violence because it's financial violence directed at your children. So the greatest threat so far has been the courts. They use the courts to try to hurt me with legal bills that I have to go raise, which is a kind of denial of service attack. Think of it like you have so many legal bills and so many lawyers that now you have to spend all your time raising money to pay these lawyers.
- [30:38]
A
Exactly.
- [30:39]
B
That's the greatest threat. Now you're filling up your calendar every week with money raising to make sure Lawyers get paid $500 an hour to defend yourself from ridiculous attacks in the courts.
- [30:50]
A
Exhausting, you bet. Expensive. All the above.
- [30:54]
B
100 hour work weeks, 41 years old, no kids, no wife, no children, because I work weekends and nights raising money to pay lawyers. And that's what they want. Hopefully AI changes that and we get the artificial intelligence to replace the lawyers and make them irrelevant. But we're not quite there yet.
- [31:13]
A
I told you I was emotional watching your journalism with Planned Parenthood, and then I was pissed off. I was so angry with COVID with Pfizer, and I don't know, is there any level of what you said, found, what you uncovered that surprised you? Because when I started to dig in and pay attention and it's wait, who's getting paid what? To tell me to take this experimental shot and how many people are benefiting to the tune of billions?
- [31:50]
B
Shocked.
- [31:51]
A
Anything shock you?
- [31:52]
B
I. That's an interesting question. Does it surprise me? I don't know the answer to that question. When you're in it like I am, you're not looking at. You're not looking. I think you're looking at it more through like a, like a. Like you were in espn.
- [32:09]
A
Yeah.
- [32:10]
B
And you're covering the sports and you're. You're interviewing the players. It's. You're in a certain modality of being where you're not thinking about whether it shocks you personally. You're trying to get. I'm trying to get the story accurate. But I think, certainly I would. I would characterize it as unconscionable. It's a shock to the conscience to have that director of MRNA planning at Pfizer, Jordan, I forgot his last name, sitting here right now. But the gentleman we caught on tape in the gay date, spilling the beans to his. The guy across the table that they're. They're thinking about mutating the COVID the COVID virus. And don't tell anybody that. It's. It's a shock. It's a shock to the conscience and. But I guess you could say we're so focused on getting the Facts straight, and getting the story to begin with that we're not really. Nothing really surprises me anymore in that way.
- [33:02]
A
What do you think the most important thing was to come out of that story?
- [33:11]
B
The way he reacted to me when I approached him and asked him for his comment was one of the most unbelievable things. I may never be able to outdo this. People have said, o', Keefe, you'll never outdo this. This is the video of. Of Jordan Tristan Walker in the pizza restaurant in Brooklyn, New York. When I confronted him and I said, hey, Jordan, I would like to ask some questions, he physically assaulted the cameraman, took the iPad that had him on the video, and then he proceeded to smash it violently on the ground as if the only location of the video was on that particular iPad. And this is not some low level guy. This is like two steps below the CEO Pfizer, and he went to Yale. And it's like, if these are the people making medical decisions in this country, like, we're in trouble. Yeah, it's bad. That was so remarkable that it was somewhere in the middle of. You know, sometimes things can look fake, and sometimes things. Things look like that's impossible to fake. It was like, AI can't make that up. It's not a sitcom. Like, what is that? That. That was truly the most remarkable thing we ever caught on videotape. Then he called the police on me, he locked me in the pizza restaurant, he falsely imprisoned me, and then he was trying to have the SD chip of the video interaction destroyed. You can't make this stuff up. Yeah, that was certainly the craziest thing.
- [34:40]
A
I was talking to Dr. Drew about this recently a couple of times. And trust and how it's now gone.
- [34:48]
B
Oh, yeah. Especially after the recent events.
- [34:51]
A
Especially after recent events. And we will get to that with. With Charlie Kirk and all of the things. But at that moment, that actually changed my life. Your coverage, your investigation into Pfizer. Because I was such a trusting person and as a mother and I always listened to what doctors said and anybody in the medical community. And I realized then, oh, my gosh, so what do we do? You know, and I don't. It's a rhetorical question, I guess. I mean, you're not a doctor or scientist, but you know a lot more than I do. And is it. I just wonder, from a human perspective, away from your job, can we ever trust again? Because these are the people that have been telling us for years, just take this. Just do this. This fixes this. This is. And now we know the only Reason why they did that is because it was lining their pockets.
- [35:43]
B
I know it's a really existential question that you're asking me, and it's really the issue at hand in present day is that there's a total breakdown of trouble. Even recently with the Tylenol thing, I read about Trump and Kenny talking about, don't take Tylenol if you're a pregnant mother to be. Really, we can't. There is no consensus now on anything. And with the Instagram and modern media, there's actually a financial incentive also on the other side for people to come up and make money off of pitching to their audience. Conspiracy theories. Some people take a little bit too far. Five years ago, when we were exposing Pfizer, it was considered like, really dangerous. Now everyone is distrustful of Big Pharma. What do we do? There has to be. There still. There still has to be. Like back in the days of Walter Cronkite, there was like a couple people that we did trust.
- [36:41]
A
Yeah.
- [36:42]
B
There has to be sources of information that we have to find a way to, to follow these individuals and trust them, because there can't be multiple sources of truth. And that's where we're headed.
- [36:53]
A
Where do we begin? How do we find them? What do we, you know?
- [36:57]
B
Well, we're trying to do our part and I'm trying to create a sustainable journalism model, but it's really the breakdown of media. The Fourth estate has been so thoroughly corrupted, and I was a firm believer, and I think Elon Musk buying X was one of the greatest things to ever happen to Western civilization. On the flip side, you don't really have any primary sources of information that people can follow. You just have a diverse, eclectic mix of opinions about everything under the sun. And I don't know the answer to that right now.
- [37:27]
A
And I listen and there, there are baby steps. And that was a giant step, a leap, a giant leap for mankind. When Elon Musk did do that, thank goodness. And what came with that is then you have the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world who are being absolutely forced to acknowledge what they did to contribute to the demise of so much. Frankly, with what he admitted, with censorship, it's, it's so prevalent. And I, like I told you, I have kids ages 19 to 23. And when we talk about any news topic, news item, they send me clips from Tick Tock. That's. That's the only place that generation gets their news.
- [38:06]
B
That's true.
- [38:08]
A
I do think one of the blessings of the chaos here is that the kids are seeing the discrepancies in it. Two things with Charlie Kirk, certainly, and I want to get to that last, but also with Epstein, and that's something that you are in deep right now, it seems, with, with the Jeffrey Epstein case, which is ongoing. I'm sorry, Prager. What's his first name?
- [38:37]
B
Glenn. Glenn Prager.
- [38:38]
A
Glenn Prager. Where does that even stand right now? And for those of you who haven't been paying attention, please go check out on omg o' Keefe Media Group, the videos of him also undercover being exposed, talking about the ties to Epstein. The difference between Donald Trump's alleged ties to Epstein and Bill Clinton, for instance. Where does it stand today, right now?
- [39:05]
B
Yeah, this is last week's huge story. Like 10 million people watched it. This guy's on an airplane. He has been an independent contractor with the Department of justice. And then 2007, 2009, he was a full time employee at DOJ interviewing Epstein victims. And he admits that all the things he observed. This is a guy inside the Department of Justice admitting these things. Says that Trump was. He was on the plane, but he wasn't on the plane when the rapes occurred, but Bill Clinton was. And the reason why the Epstein whole thing has been killed and covered up is primarily because of the Clinton connection. He also says that Epstein is CIA and foreign agent. So I don't think it was a bad thing for the White House because it kind of exonerates Trump, confirms suspicions. But he did say that there were certain people that Trump may know, like a donor or something whose name they're trying to protect. And I think this whole thing is so. It cuts so deep that if you were actually to unredact these things, it would bring down the entire United States government. It would just, everything would collapse. And I don't, I also don't necessarily think that that's a good thing for America. Maybe we want to topple it brick by brick. Not all at once. Because the Department of Justice and the FBI, their primary interest is in not having their sources and their methods exposed. That is the only interest that they have. Right. Because they're an arm of the intelligence community. And the intelligence community, the primary interest is not protecting American, you know, the public's right to know or justice in the way that you and I have been talking about it. Their primary interest is in protecting their information. So what I do is stands as an enemy to their interest. So we break the story and the Department of Justice comes out swinging against me. Like this is they issued like, three statements. They even tweeted out two statements saying that people are trying to make money off victims. Like, what are you talking about, making money off victims? I'm literally showing the guy's lips moving. Inside your department.
- [41:16]
A
Yeah.
- [41:17]
B
Others on the left tried to say, well, this is o' Keefe attacking Donald Trump. I said, this isn't anything to do with Donald Trump. This is about activity that happened from 2007 to 2009. And then the DOJ said, well, this is a long time ago. And I said, epstein didn't do. All of this activity is from over six years ago anyway, so that's a non sequitur. You're trying to say that it doesn't matter because it was six years ago. Well, then nothing matters if everything is six years ago. But I found it. What was most interesting is that various forces inside the Department of Justice even went so far as making calls to, apparently some of my donors, to us at o' Keefe Media Group and our Citizen Journalism foundation, which is our nonprofit. It wasn't a direct pressure. It was like, maybe o' Keefe should kind of not keep focusing on this. It was a very subliminal. I'm. I'm telling you all of this. And by the way, I. I figured this out. I discovered this secondhand. All the fact that the DOJ responded this way, in my opinion, actually corroborates my reporting.
- [42:31]
A
That's a thousand percent what I was just going to say. Otherwise, why call you? Why do anything? Right?
- [42:38]
B
We even got one message, which was, james o' Keefe ruined our entire day dealing with the fallout of this tape. And journalism, which is what I stand for, stands in contrast to you asked about Epstein. I'm telling you, people are trying to understand what this all means, because it's not about Jeff Epstein. It's about something greater. It's about secrets and power and the FBI and all these things. And I wanted to tell you that story because I think it's emblematic of the problem that we're faced with.
- [43:13]
A
Absolutely. Absolutely. And if indeed we care about these victims, then everybody should be digging to find out the truth, period. And it does concern me that not as many people are. I will say, as a proud conservative and a vocal Trump supporter during the election, etcetera, I have been disappointed with the way that it has been handled since based solely on. That was something he ran on and.
- [43:44]
B
Did run on that.
- [43:44]
A
Absolutely. And then we have Pam Bondi holding up the binders and the social media influencers. They're getting passed out the binders, everything got quiet.
- [43:52]
B
That was not handled.
- [43:53]
A
That's my point. So when you talk about accountability, own that. Okay, we screwed up this. Because now we know this. We made this mistake. But we're learning this is a very difficult case, and that has been avoided completely.
- [44:04]
B
There's a challenge here between loyalty and doing the right thing.
- [44:07]
A
Correct.
- [44:08]
B
And I think you know what I mean. It's like. Let me give you a less abstract example. Let's say there's some rich, conservative donor on that list who did something they shouldn't have. What's the saying, if you've got a close friend, that friends help you bury the bodies. And by the way, I think there's a virtue in that, in life. My best friend will probably help me bury a body. Never had to. But if it came to it, he probably would. That's a tough. That's a tough one, is how do you have to balance the loyalty, perhaps the president or someone in that administration has with one of these individuals, their loyalty with the public's right to know. And clearly, in this case, the public has a right to know. I'll give you another clear case. When the FBI raided me, you have to have probable cause for a search warrant. And they finally released the search warrant, probable cause this year. Every single word of it was redacted. Three pages. There wasn't one word that didn't have a black marker over it. And you know why the FBI doesn't release the probable cause? Well, let's say there were confidential FBI informants at Project Veritas. That means they were inserting moles into my operation or recruiting people to flip and turn and sabotage. And they. And they might say, Cash Patel might say, well, my mission is to protect my sources. And I would say the public's right to know.
- [45:26]
A
Yes.
- [45:27]
B
Why the FBI raided a newsroom supersedes your right in the Bureau to protect your sources. Because you forfeited your right to protect your sources when you pointed guns at journalists and took their notebooks. If the Soviet Union did that or Russia did that or North Korea did that, our State Department would issue sanctions.
- [45:45]
A
Yes.
- [45:46]
B
And this is the constitutional crisis that we're in.
- [45:49]
A
So I feel like that's what's happening with this case in particular.
- [45:52]
B
Certainly we've crossed the Rubicon.
- [45:54]
A
What should they do?
- [45:56]
B
The only solution is to have whistleblowers like Cash Patel would have to literally blow the whistle on his own agency for that. Would. That would be the. Because you'd have to, like, literally give up a source. You'd have to. You'd have to take the black marker thing off of the text. And it would expose things the bureau doesn't want exposed. And he would be fired from his job. Like, he would be removed from that job. And I think Bongino said something. I don't know if you saw Bongino's tweet a month ago where he's like, I have seen things that would bother me in the depths of my soul. And by the way, I think Bonjino, I think these are all good, good men. I think Bongino is a good guy. But, like, I was frustrated. Like, why don't you come out and tell us what bothered you to the depths of your soul? Why are you teasing us with this information he has? He owes it to us, doesn't he?
- [46:48]
A
Yeah.
- [46:49]
B
To come out. But if Bongino came out and told us what bothers us in the depths of his soul, he would lose his job.
- [46:54]
A
Lose his job.
- [46:55]
B
They would all lose their jobs.
- [46:56]
A
But again, another issue is transparency. And that's what we crushed the last administration for, because there was none for the most basic things like the president's health. When you see him falling up steps and unable to complete sentences and. And we crush them for that.
- [47:08]
B
Well, I don't think it has anything to do with who's in charge in the President. I think it's a permanent administrative state, a permanent apparatus.
- [47:17]
A
But when we can't, we. Sorry, who am I? Right. Either side. But in this case, the right. And during Trump's campaign, that is part of your messaging about the transparency. And in many ways they have been. I mean, look at the access. It's. It's completely.
- [47:32]
B
I think this my. The conclusion I've come to. It's ugly. And by the way, let me say two things. Something. I'm going to say something ugly about where we are, and I'm also going to express hope.
- [47:42]
A
Yeah.
- [47:42]
B
Let me start with the. Because I think leaders. Job of a leader is to define reality and then say, here's a solution. So let's start with the reality. The reality is like Charles Murray wrote about, and we, the people, our system, our government is in a state of advanced sclerosis where solutions are outside of the electoral and legislative process. There is no solving this through conventional means. You can't elect somebody. Let's say we elect somebody.
- [48:08]
A
Yeah.
- [48:09]
B
And they put them in a skiff and they show them the video from 50 years ago where they shot John F. Kennedy and they said, hey, you see this video? Yeah, you better do what we say, yeah, okay. You can't elect somebody through conventional methods. So the hope is you have very brave men and women like Charlie Kirk is, he's, he's. In my opinion, Charlie's a Christ like figure.
- [48:32]
A
Yes.
- [48:33]
B
You have very brave people who are willing to sacrifice, make enormous sacrifices to bring us information, including their life. You might say, well, o', Keefe, you're naive and foolhardy. Look at history, look at the saints, look at the Jesus, look at all the great men that came before. You have to find people who are in positions of power who are willing to expose the truth and do the right thing. That's the only solution. And I dare anyone in the comments section tell me I'm wrong. I'd like to hear the reasons you can't give me a different solution. And by the way, I think everyone's coming to this now. You can't have the bureau or the CIA tell you the truth. And the thing about Charlie, I don't know, this is so soon, but the people. I don't, I don't even have a comment because I haven't looked into it. And I think it'd be inappropriate for me to provide you a comment on something I haven't looked into. But if, if all your conspiracy theories are correct, you're probably never going to know anyway, right? Because we still don't know about jfk, do we?
- [49:33]
A
Yeah.
- [49:34]
B
So if, if some other thing did the thing, if the intelligence agencies are involved, let me tell you something, you're never going to know. They have cutouts, they have ways to mask their tracks.
- [49:45]
A
And you get it. And sometimes there are certain things that. As for the safety and the well being of our country, we can't let that information out. Things that have nothing to do with anything with Pfizer, with Epstein. But I do wanna wrap up on that on the Epstein topic, because it is. Everybody says, well, why are the Democrats just now railing on Republicans to expose this? And if Trump had had an issue or been involved to a certain level, wouldn't they have exposed that before? Why all of a sudden now do they want these released?
- [50:19]
B
It's politics. It's, it's a, as another way in rules for radicals. People in politics live in a world of angles, not angels, where people talk about moral principles, but act out of power principles. So it's just political, like let's protect victims. But really it's about getting Trump.
- [50:38]
A
It's just like the government shutdown. It's your fault. It's your fault. It's your Fault, Okay.
- [50:41]
B
It's superficial power games. And they're trying to get Trump, and this group is trying to get the Dems. But, yes, you start to realize, and as I grow, evolve in my. In my sensibilities, it's just about power and money and sex. Everyone is motivated. In dc, I think you could say sex and power are kind of the same thing, but they're all about those. They're all about their own ambition, and their ambition is the very thing that prevents them from doing the thing you want them to do. We live in a world of angles, not angels. Now, Charlie Kirk and I can't say enough good things about this man. He lived in a world of angels, and I got to know him, and he genuinely. I think the legacy of Charlie Kirk is do the right things for the right reasons. I genuinely believe that man had a pure heart. And I think there are some people out there with a pure heart. Not everyone is this way, but most people are.
- [51:35]
A
Your conversation, one of the most recent conversations with Charlie. I'm wondering when. When discussing your work with Epstein, and you told him that you were conflicted.
- [51:49]
B
Yeah.
- [51:49]
A
Why?
- [51:51]
B
I was conflicted because I knew that the people that have been. I've been fighting, some of them, let's call them the left, would try to use this as a cudgel to. To get Trump. And even in the car on the way to this very interview, there was a guy. I hesitate to say his name because I don't want to give him any infamy, but some guy, former Daily Beast reporter, was like, why are you going after the Trump administration? So I was conflicted because they were going to try to use this as a political thing. And I. And I. And I genuinely support. I do support the president, and I. I want to help him, and he's helped me, and I believe in his mission of transparency, and I know how hard it is to get an attorney general appointed and how difficult and how much harm in a utilitarian sense, it will cause. And I was conflicted because I genuinely want the administration to succeed.
- [52:47]
A
Yeah.
- [52:48]
B
And I think you're referring to what Charlie texted me back. Right.
- [52:50]
A
It's beautiful, isn't it? I'll let you say it.
- [52:53]
B
It's profound. Charlie Kirk's last words for me via text messages, without hesitation, he said, james, you should be a journalist first. And that. That was really kind of surprising because I always viewed Charlie as a very political operative sort of guy, but he understood the place that I had, which is to tell the truth, without fear and without favoritism. That was the Charlie Kirk's last words to me some few weeks ago.
- [53:25]
A
I think it speaks so much about the human being that he was. I feel honored that I got to know him and got to witness.
- [53:38]
B
What was your relationship with him like? I'm curious.
- [53:40]
A
I was asked a year and a half, summer of 24 to speak at his Turning Point USA faith summit. It was in West Palm. And you know, this is from someone who had never been allowed to speak her 30 year career for obvious reasons. And I was scared. I didn't speak about my faith much publicly and honored and got up on that stage and was just in awe that he thought I was worthy honestly of doing that. Most recently in May, this last time I saw him in Phoenix, he had me on for his Freedom Night in America at church in Scottsdale. And I brought my oldest daughter with me. I'm so glad. I usually don't travel with my kids.
- [54:23]
B
This was in Palm. This is in Arizona.
- [54:25]
A
Scottsdale, yeah, in Arizona. No, the faith conference was West Palm last summer. 24. This most recent May is when I was on his Freedom Night in America in Scottsdale and brought my daughter. I usually don't travel with the kids separate. They're busy. I'm busy. I need to focus. And I'm so glad I brought her. And what I said to her is, watch him. 10 minute or so chat, you know, in typical Charlie Kirk fashion before he brought me on.
- [54:49]
B
Wow.
- [54:49]
A
And she, she just was like, oh my goodness. Because I've never seen anybody who can quote every part of the Constitution. It felt like. As well as every chapter and verse of the Bible. And so when I was around him, I felt dumber. Cause I'm like, oh, I can't even. Why are in the same room.
- [55:08]
B
None of us can do that, right? None of us.
- [55:10]
A
But then smarter when leaving, you know.
- [55:13]
B
He lifted you up. Lifted us all up.
- [55:15]
A
Yes. And encouraged me to continue to speak and do what you're doing, do what I'm doing. Just being true to ourselves, whatever that is. And then I was at his Amfest and brought my show to Amfest last year. And just an honor to get to know someone who led with his faith number one and conviction. So it doesn't surprise me that he said what he said to you even though he was as ingrained as anybody, not just in helping him get elected. And we now know why it meant so much. Because he felt he was going to be imprisoned. I mean, they were, they were on these lists that the Biden administration had full investigations Taking his, his, his, his family as home. Like it was going to be ugly for Charlie. He said that on my show when he stopped by at Amfest last December. But also, I mean he was a massive part of the transition and he basically, besides Thanksgiving, was living right outside of Mar a Lago, helping them with this. So for, for us to appreciate his involvement to that level and then for him to follow it up by saying don't worry about these people that some of whom are my friends. If you're Charlie telling James o' Keefe you do your job, that is about his character.
- [56:29]
B
It did. You're very, very well said. It's, it's, it's not so much it was surprising. I suppose it, it confirmed my hope. Charlie, I think Charlie, my view of it was he evolved and then perhaps became a little. I know Andrew, his producer said he became bored with politics. I would characterize it as disillusionment because Charlie evolved from this 18 year old power, you know, Republican guy with striped tie to political operative and community organizer to a husband and a father to, he wanted to remember for his faith. I mean he, he really evolved in the, in the journey over the course of a decade. And I met him when he was 18 in a diner in Chicago and he was soliciting advice from so many people and I don't know how one human does all that. And he empowered you and he empowered a thousand other people like you. How does one man find the time? I would love to see how he manages time. He was taking advantage of every moment. Every moment.
- [57:30]
A
Well, and then I remember being on stage with him there at Freedom Night and also at Amfest last year. And you know, he has the big crowd around him and he asks you a question and he's looking at you, but then he puts the mic down and you, you, you would almost feel like he wasn't fully paying attention because he was just doing so many things at once. But he hears every, hears everything, but he's preparing for the next 10 things.
- [57:51]
B
When I was on Live with him in Arizona, the Amfest you were at, I observed him and he, he had asked me a question. I gave a 35 second response. He had composed two emails, responded to four people on Telegram and sent a text message and, and didn't miss a beat. No. And not many people, oh no, I.
- [58:11]
A
Have to do this in order to comprehend and then transition in my head and segue.
- [58:15]
B
Oh, he did multitask.
- [58:16]
A
Genius. An absolute genius. What do you believe is his biggest legacy? There's so many Things that he's done.
- [58:26]
B
Oh, yeah, but I think that's an easy one. I think that's an easy one.
- [58:29]
A
But we're still absorbing because as of today. Well, as of today. Right. Because I have people every day, James, who come up to me, dear friends of mine who are like, I had no idea. Now I'm listening to his clips and now they're in tears. They didn't know him before. I feel like his legacy is going to continue to evolve because there's so many people who are just learning.
- [58:49]
B
True. Well, I'll start with practical. I've read the Bible every night for the last week. I haven't opened a Bible in a decade. I mean, I'm a man, I'm a Christian man, but I don't. I could always be a better Christian man. So I said, so I talked to Pastor Jack Hibbs, who I met through Charlie, I meet everyone through Charlie Kirk, and he, and he said, just read the Book of John. So I read that. And the legacy is certainly, let me put it to you in my own words. If you don't believe in God, then what is there? Like, what, what is, what is there? This dark, horrible world, unfortunately fallen world that we're living in, which is. We're entering. I hate to break it to you, but we're entering some dark times. It's going to get worse before it gets better. But I think the legacy of Charlie Kirk is seeing that horrible thing happen to such a good man. We saw one of the best human beings in. On the planet Earth get crucified. Does that remind you of something? Yeah, a man that. I'm just telling you, from what I observed, a man that. Who practiced what he preached and was not a hypocrite. He was the least hypocritical man that I've ever known. Does that remind you of something? We watched a person get slaughtered on live television. And our daughters and sons and our. I've never seen anything like that in my life. And I've watched some crazy things on television in Hollywood. I've never seen anything so violent and despicable and horrible happening. Something so good and pure. So what does that tell you? It tell. I mean, if you don't believe in God, they win. That's what I'm telling you. If you don't, if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, they have won. So we almost have to believe in God. That's the legacy of Charlie Kirk. He and, and I was, Were you there in the stadium? I mean it like someone said this, but it was like there was so much spirituality in that room. It felt like a tuning fork. I mean, it was like, I've never. I've never experienced 80,000 human beings just in one. And I know there's been, you know, been to church and you go to these mega churches, but this was different. It was like you felt his presence in the air around you. So the legacy of Charlie Kirk is there will be millions of new Christians. Now, not all of those people are going to do anything. Sure, they might do it for a few months and go back to their hedonistic ways, but there's going to be like.001% of them who are going to be disciples. That means there's going to be dozens of people who are going to go out there and do a lot, and that's all that's needed. You don't need 10 million people to change the world. God bless Charlie Kirk for all of his events. It's great to see the tens of thousands of students. You don't need that. You just need like a dozen.
- [61:38]
A
You just need a dozen just from that stadium. What I felt you're going to have. Remember when one of the pastors, maybe it was Rob McCoy, said at the beginning, for those of you who have already accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, stay seated.
- [61:52]
B
I remember that.
- [61:52]
A
For those of you who want to stand up, I remember that hundreds, maybe thousands of people stood up. And I know you've had conversations like this since then. With the hundred million plus people streaming again, we've seen nothing like this. Maybe the Super Bowl, World cup, that's it. I believe it's going to be so many more than we can even comprehend.
- [62:13]
B
And maybe people are ashamed to stand up in public, but they may in private, you know, take the Bible out of that hotel room drawer and start reading it. That's the legacy of Charlie Kirk.
- [62:23]
A
What made you open your Bible, though, a week ago?
- [62:28]
B
You ask great questions. You ask good questions, Charlie Kirk. And I'm trying to try not to get emotional here. I'm really trying to keep it together. I had to film my on camera from my memorial video like 10 times because I couldn't stop crying. And I'm trying to be a serious journalist. He said to me, when this, all this happened with Project Veridas, I mean, this was really hard for me. This was. I had to start all over again. I lost everything except for my audience. I didn't lose my audience, but I lost money, employees, everything. And I was struggling and I. And he was helping me. Charlie helped me make payroll one month, which is like $90,000 for my team, by the way, that convinced even the non believers. That will convince anybody. And I remember, you know, pulling off the side of the road and having these long conversations with Charlie Kirk. This is a guy who would give up his time. And he asked me this question, and the question was, you know, I'm telling him all this horrible things happening to me. And he said, james, do you love yourself? Do you love yourself? You have to be at peace with who you are. And of course, Charlie helped me be a better man by examining the choices that you make in your own life. So that's what made me open the Bible, was it? The reminder of that in the context of everything that has happened and seeing him be slaughtered, form of crucifixion, he. He brought back the memory of. In the context of what he said to me, has whole new meaning to me. That I can be the better version of myself, that I can control my own choices, that I can. We all are sinners, by the way. Every one of us have issues with different things, whether it be lust or whatever the case may be. And he's reminding me to be a better man. And what better example to follow than a Charlie Kirk or the man that came before him 2000 years ago?
- [64:29]
A
What a gift that he said that to you. I mean, that trumps everything, everything we do in our career, legacy, money. I mean, that is incredible. And these are the kind of stories that we need to keep telling because of how much he helped us selfishly. Right. And millions of other people now. So I feel I. That's what I hope and pray as well as the revival people are talking about with faith. But I also believe. Now, I said this to my kids. We cannot afford to stay quiet. We don't have to do it the way others do. We don't have to be ugly and hateful. But what they want is for us to now retreat because we're afraid. Because this is what happens if you speak up. Right?
- [65:19]
B
Yes.
- [65:20]
A
In the meantime. No, we can take what he did and I think draw courage from it and be better and be kinder and be stronger. But it has to be rooted in faith. Like I firmly believe this will not be wasted.
- [65:39]
B
No, no, it's. It's. I would say it remains to be seen, but the faith, rooted in faith and rooted, that this is a temporary situation. We are on planet Earth. What's that famous poem? The. The poem about the Horatius at the bridge? It hangs in my office, and I might butcher it, but it says, thus outspoke brave Horatius the. The guardian of the gate. To every man, death cometh sooner or late. But how can men die better than facing fearful odds for the temples or for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods? So we're basically all going to die. And. And the. And the situation has reminded us of our own mortality.
- [66:22]
A
Yeah.
- [66:22]
B
And I think people don't really think about that. And that video, that horrible. I don't know if you saw that video. That horrible video, which I've never seen anything like, in my life, reminded all of us of our own mortality. Kind of like, what's the point of any of this? Right. What's the point? You ask about justice. In this interview, you asked about all these great questions, but, like, deeper than justice and deeper than accountability and putting bad guys in jail. Like, what is the actual point of all of this? So the point. The point is let's. Let's die for a righteous cause.
- [66:56]
A
Yeah.
- [66:56]
B
Are they going to crucify us all? Bring it. They're going to crucify me. Bring it. Spend the, you know, Paul spent time in prison, the apostles and all these like, okay, fine. You can do a lot of good reading in prison. I can read books, be less stressful. Look at my life right now. I'm hustled from one place to another. Spend some time in prison. As long as there's no. We're going to be okay. And even if there is, you know, there's. There's great joy and suffering, and you get closer to God. You need to get closer to God.
- [67:24]
A
Do you feel. And I know we're almost done. I'm sorry. Do you. I don't know. Have you. Have you asked yourself that question that Charlie asked you about loving yourself?
- [67:35]
B
You can always do better.
- [67:37]
A
Like, but where are you in that?
- [67:38]
B
Where am I personally?
- [67:39]
A
Yes. When he says, do you love yourself? Like, have you gone deeper in that way?
- [67:45]
B
And I learned more in my 38th year on this planet than I learned in my previous 37 years. I really. That year, 2023, was a transformative year. I mean, I lost my relationship. I lost my. My friends. And then I. You know, the real deep work is, what about them made me want to. What about me attracted that to begin with? So that was deep inner work that. That I had to do. So it wasn't blaming them, like, these people that betrayed me. It wasn't about them. It was about. What about me chose them. You see, what I'M saying, yeah, take responsibility for the lack of discernment there.
- [68:26]
A
That's gross.
- [68:27]
B
And by the way, the answer is that I was naive. And by. Jordan Peterson tells us, being naive is not good. People think it's innocent. It's not good to be a warrior and be naive. So it was a loss of some innocence, but it was some, Some, Some gaining some wisdom. So I, I just. I take responsibility for that. And by the way, I'm. I. I have a lot left to learn. I'm not fully there yet. I'm learning every day.
- [68:52]
A
And you want to be a father?
- [68:54]
B
I do.
- [68:55]
A
You want to get married?
- [68:56]
B
I have to find a woman to do that. A woman.
- [68:58]
A
Right woman.
- [68:59]
B
A woman who is willing to. For. For me to. For me to be in jail for a crime I didn't commit. They have to be okay with that. Not everyone is okay with this lifestyle. And, yeah, I really do want to have children. I do. Probably a good thing that I haven't so far, only because of what I've been through in my life. And I think that the powers that be might use your children against you. So I like to say that my price is my life, which it is. But most people's price is actually their children's life. People will do anything so that their children don't get targeted.
- [69:33]
A
Yeah.
- [69:33]
B
So that the challenge is how do you have children? Doing what I do for a living. And I think there's a solution, but it's going to require the right partner who shares the same values that I share.
- [69:45]
A
Do you pray about it?
- [69:46]
B
I do. I need to do more of that, but I do.
- [69:49]
A
Yeah. Finally, you. You use the word warrior. You said it. I'm a fighter. I'm a warrior.
- [69:56]
B
Definitely. Definitely a warrior. That is definitely. What would a warrior. Steve. Steve Bannon said that. I'm a warrior poet. I think that's a warrior artist, a warrior journalist, that. That kind of thing.
- [70:09]
A
So if it ends today, you good?
- [70:14]
B
That's a. That's a really deep question. Yeah. I have no regrets. I. I've done everything. I've done everything. I've worked as hard as I possibly can. I've made some points, poor choices in the past, and I've learned from them. And I think our mission is going to accelerate. I don't think it's my time to go. It's not my time to say whether it's my time to go, but I think Charlie Kirk came here to teach us something. He went out on his prime as Jack Posobic. He went out on his prime. Like Michael Jordan in 1997, prime. 31 years old. They're almost 32. I think I've got a lot left to learn, to be honest with you, so I don't think it's my time yet.
- [71:01]
A
We need you.
- [71:04]
B
We need. We need me. And I need the brave disciples inside the government to come to me so I can tell their stories. So I don't think it's my time. That's my. That's my genuine belief, for what it's worth. And to the extent that God has shared something with me, I think that's the answer I'm hearing.
- [71:22]
A
I'm just going to end on your mission again. I don't know, I just thought. I just thought about this, like, again, you've. You've. You've led with this. James, it is my mission to clean up society through transparency, accountability and the truth. And that's exactly what you're doing. And I'm grateful. Not just as a journalist, as a. As a human being. We need people, more people with the courage that you have and willing to risk at all. Thank you.
- [71:47]
B
We need to know the truth. And the truth shall set us free.
- [71:52]
A
Thank you so much.