On Tuesday, Project Veritas CEO and founder James O’Keefe lowered the boom on his latest shock wave to the liberal media ecosystem, revealing that, thanks to a whistleblower, his organization has been recording CNN’s morning editorial call for months.
And even better yet, he live-streamed Tuesday’s meeting and jumped in to reveal himself to CNN boss and puppetmaster Jeff Zucker. In the first batch, it only bolstered the notion that CNN’s become the most poisonous name in news.
Speaking later to the Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, O’Keefe diagnosed CNN as a “propaganda” outlet with Zucker instructing his staff “what the story is” and what should (and shouldn’t) be covered, creating “manufactur[ed] consent.”
Hannity teed O’Keefe up by asking whether CNN was a news organization seeing as how they’ve “never apologized” or “corrected their record” for the years of Russiagate but instead continued their “stalk[ing] of the Fox News Channel.”
Instead of trying to parse or break up into smaller quotes what O’Keefe said, we’ve provided his full takedown below:
No, Sean. This is — this is something that doesn't shock people but confirms a lot of his suspicions. To see the president of a media conglomerate barking orders at his reporters and journalists, telling them what to cover, what not to cover, that's not what anything was in plain journalism I know. I run an organization with a few dozen reporters. They come to me with facts. They’re not — I'm not — they’re not yessing me. In fact, they are challenging me. And what — what Jeff Zucker is doing on these phone calls is telling what the story is, telling them what not to cover. This is — this is propaganda and I think when citizens have to exercise their rights and duties, the consent need to be inform. This is manufacturing consent and we’ve never actually seen it, fly on the wall. You can actually hear the president of the company instruct his vice president, instruct his reporters what the narrative ought to be. This is the farthest thing from journalism that I know. And I think that CNN owes an apology to the people. I mean, this is — this is disgraceful and this is the first time we’ve actually seen it. You can actually hear it.
Building up to that, Hannity first set the table with highlights from the first batch of clips, leading off with O’Keefe crashing Tuesday’s call.
Hannity shared three more clips that dealt with CNN invoking the 9/11 attacks when denouncing the lack of a Trump concession, demanding CNN not “normalize” Trump as he recovered from coroanvirus, and turn their full ire toward Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (click “expand”):
HANNITY: [F]irst up, we have a CNN field producer and Zucker talking about covering the President's decision to not yet concede the race, suggesting CNN should frame the story by invoking the 9/11 terror attacks. We always let you decide, here's the video.
CNN FIELD PRODUCER STEPHANIE BECKER: The 9/11 report talks about one of the problems was that the trouble that was brewing got lost during the transition. So, if you want a concrete example of what happens when you don't have a good transition, look at the twin towers.
ZUCKER: Yeah, so I think that's an important point. I think it was just a little bit yesterday in terms of national security, I think it's really important to raise again.
(....)
HANNITY: They are glaring in their bias and their utter disgusting hypocrisy, couldn't be more obvious, and it gets worse because, next up, October, President Trump recovering from a coronavirus, Zucker is now telling his staff they need to resist normalizing the President and to not normalize what Zucker calls desperate behavior. Does this sound like objective news to you?
ZUCKER: I think we cannot normalize what has happened here in the last week with Trump in his behavior. [SCREEN WIPE] This is a President who knows he's losing, knows he's in trouble. He is sick, maybe is on the aftereffects of steroids or not, I don't know, but he is acting erratically and desperately and we need to — we need to — we need to not normalize that.
HANNITY: And Joe hiding, that was normal? Lastly, weeks ago, Zucker instructing his staff to target Senator Lindsey Graham saying the network needed to “go well after Lindsey Graham,” Target the guys we don't like. Take a look.
ZUCKER: Frankly if we've made any mistake it's that our banners have been too polite and we need to go well after Lindsey Graham. There is a lot of news out there and Lindsey Graham really deserves it.
Hannity added that CNN responded on Twitter by threatening legal action (because “[l]egal experts say this may be a felony”) and first asked O’Keefe about CNN’s chances of winning any hypothetical suit: “Alright, every time you've been sued, has anyone done so successfully?”
O’Keefe replied that “we’ve won every single lawsuit at Project Veritas” and he has “legal experts” of his own that believe “Jeff Zucker is just very mad and embarrassed here for what we have exposed.”
And after O’Keefe’s masterful and succinct diagnosis of CNN, Hannity wondered about what else they had coming in the days and weeks to come, which led O’Keefe to refer to what’s to come as “an advent calendar” of sorts with CNN tapes in December.
O’Keefe closed by giving thanks to their source: “[T]his is the brave whistle-blower insider who came to us with this information, Sean, and we encourage more people inside media enterprises to blow the whistle on the corruption inside big media.”
To see the relevant FNC transcript from December 1, click “expand.”
FNC’s Hannity
December 1, 2020
9:40 p.m. EasternSEAN HANNITY: Now, breaking tonight, explosive new recordings from inside fake news CNN being released by Project Veritas exposing fake news frauds like network chief Jeff Zucker like never before. Now earlier this morning, Project Veritas’s Founder/CEO James O’Keefe, he called into CNN's morning editorial call and, well, you would say Humpty Dumpty's boss, Mr. Potato Head, didn't know what was coming. Take a look.
JAMES O’KEEFE: Hey, Jeff Zucker, are you there?
JEFF ZUCKER: Yes?
O’KEEFE: Hey, this is James O’Keefe. We’ve been listening to your CNN calls for basically two months, recording everything. Just wanted to ask you some questions if you have a minute. Do you still feel you're the most trusted name in news? Because I have to say, from what I've been hearing on these phone calls, I don't know about that. I mean, we've got a lot of recordings that indicate you're not really that independent of a journalist.
JEFF ZUCKER: Thank you for — thank you for your comments. In light of that I think what we will do is we will set up a new system.
HANNITY: Project Veritas tonight released the first installment of these recordings and first up we have a CNN field producer and Zucker talking about covering the President's decision to not yet concede the race, suggesting CNN should frame the story by invoking the 9/11 terror attacks. We always let you decide, here's the video.
CNN FIELD PRODUCER STEPHANIE BECKER: The 9/11 report talks about one of the problems was that the trouble that was brewing got lost during the transition. So, if you want a concrete example of what happens when you don't have a good transition, look at the twin towers.
ZUCKER: Yeah, so I think that's an important point. I think it was just a little bit yesterday in terms of national security, I think it's really important to raise again.
HANNITY: Now, do you ever remember fake news CNN talking about the national security applications of the Obama administration? You know, the deep state using Hillary's dirty Russian misinformation dossier to spy on candidate Trump, President Trump, his administration, the biggest abuse of power corruption scandal in history. No. They’re the ones that peddled the conspiracy theories, the Russian disinformation dossier, perpetuating years and years of a Russia hoax. What about those national security concerns? They are glaring in their bias and their utter disgusting hypocrisy, couldn't be more obvious, and it gets worse because, next up, October, President Trump recovering from a coronavirus, Zucker is now telling his staff they need to resist normalizing the President and to not normalize what Zucker calls desperate behavior. Does this sound like objective news to you?
ZUCKER: I think we cannot normalize what has happened here in the last week with Trump in his behavior. [SCREEN WIPE] This is a President who knows he's losing, knows he's in trouble. He is sick, maybe is on the aftereffects of steroids or not, I don't know, but he is acting erratically and desperately and we need to — we need to — we need to not normalize that.
HANNITY: And Joe hiding, that was normal? Lastly, weeks ago, Zucker instructing his staff to target Senator Lindsey Graham saying the network needed to “go well after Lindsey Graham,” Target the guys we don't like. Take a look.
ZUCKER: Frankly if we've made any mistake it's that our banners have been too polite and we need to go well after Lindsey Graham. There is a lot of news out there and Lindsey Graham really deserves it.
HANNITY: CNN responded claiming that O’Keefe may have committed a felony, but didn't offer any specifics or cite any laws allegedly violated. Here now is the CEO. He is the founder of Project Veritas. James O’Keefe is with us. Alright, every time you've been sued, has anyone done so successfully?
O’KEEFE: No, Sean, we’ve — we’ve won every single lawsuit a Project Veritas and I know they said, quote, this is CNN communications, “legal experts say this may be a felony.” We have legal experts at Project Veritas and we think Jeff Zucker is just very mad and embarrassed here for what we have exposed.HANNITY: Now, you’re going to be on this program all week and we’re going to release more tapes every week so we can focus in on what you're going to release every day. Now, they peddled this Russia lie for three years over there. They never apologized. They never corrected their record and they reported fake, phony news and advanced conspiracy theories. They have stalkers of the Fox News Channel. And we’re getting lectured by them? Is this a news organization to you?
O’KEEFE: No, Sean. This is — this is something that doesn't shock people but confirms a lot of his suspicions. To see the president of a media conglomerate barking orders at his reporters and journalists, telling them what to cover, what not to cover, that's not what anything was in plain journalism I know. I run an organization with a few dozen reporters. They come to me with facts. They’re not — I'm not — they’re not yessing me. In fact, they are challenging me. And what — what Jeff Zucker is doing on these phone calls is telling what the story is, telling them what not to cover. This is — this is propaganda and I think when citizens have to exercise their rights and duties, the consent need to be inform. This is manufacturing consent and we’ve never actually seen it, fly on the wall. You can actually hear the president of the company instruct his vice president, instruct his reporters what the narrative ought to be. This is the farthest thing from journalism that I know. And I think that CNN owes an apology to the people. I mean, this is — this is disgraceful and this is the first time —
HANNITY: It also looks like an in-kind —
O’KEEFE: — we’ve actually seen it. You can actually hear it.
HANNITY: — donation to everything Biden. It looks like they have picked a side. They picked Joe Biden's side. Alright, you — the way you do things, you have a lot more coming. How long did you record these morning calls?
O’KEEFE: Oh, I told Zucker this morning when I — when I livestreamed the call. I said I’ve been doing this for two months and he was kind of shell-shocked by that. We've been recording for weeks and weeks, Sean. It's Christmas, December 1st. It’s going to be like, I guess, an advent calendar. We're going to be releasing tapes every day and we have more tapes tonight, tomorrow, and it's going to be, you know — this is the brave whistle-blower insider who came to us with this information, Sean, and we encourage more people inside media enterprises to blow the whistle on the corruption inside big media.
HANNITY: Alright, we look forward to installment two tomorrow. Thank you, James O’Keefe.
