are joining in the room, opportunities to continue without the microphone. it is a wonderful panelist, thank you for tuning in. we have many of these and can look forward to stimulating conversations. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> james o'keefe, how did you get started with project veritas? >> guest: i got started at

rutgers university, surrounded by political correctness and people trying to shut others down and it outraged me. it was very upsetting. it angered me that there was a lack of freedom of thought on college campus. this was ten years ago, things have gotten much worse. i got off the panel here and talked about this contempt and the anger of injustice and that got me started. >> host: was there a specific incident? >> guest: at rutgers they had grease trucks that sold sandwiches and some had offensive names on them. they put duct tape over the name censoring the names of these sandwiches. this whole outcry in response to that, we tried to ban lucky

charms on the grounds that it is racist against irish people. it was just a joke, satire, university officials took us seriously and we secretly recorded the encounter and it went viral on campus in 2005. >> host: in 2010 in new orleans you open your book "breakthrough: our guerilla war to expose fraud and save democracy," being arrested. what happened? >> guest: there's a lot of misinformation about that. i was arrested, i showed my real drivers license when i entered this federal building. i wasn't pretending to be something i wasn't, i showed my real drivers license but i was arrested by the authorities and they were going to let me go when they found out i was james o'keefe who did this story about a horn, hidden cameras involving temp and prostitutes, these authorities conjured up a crime against me. just entering by false pretenses would have been one conversation but they conjured up this felony

of tampering with the phone system. the majority of the book talks about the abuse of power in government. always prosecutors resigned in disgrace, they were leaking things, bloging anonymously against me but it was abuse of power and i'm grateful that it happened to me because it taught me, like getting a shot which prevents and illness, further illness. by going through that experience it taught me to be careful and this is the only thing my adversaries have against me as i pled guilty to a misdemeanor of being in a federal building but it is a long story and hard to explain in a few words but abuse of power by the federal government in government in >> host: why "breakthrough: our guerilla war to expose fraud and save democracy"? >> guest: so much of what we do is circumventing the mainstream media and getting the news out and in front of people. it is very hard to break through

to the mainstream media these days. we had a big story on cnn, hidden camera video, didn't engine a word about it. the notion of getting on the front page of the new york times for anderson cooper to talk about you, getting the number one video on youtube, number one trending thing on twitter, these are what we call breaking through. a chapter in "breakthrough: our guerilla war to expose fraud and save democracy" talks about a story on congressman james moran's son talking about voting multiple times and the story is crescendoing on twitter. 1 billion people are tweet stretching about it. only been to the powers that be think that we need to talk about this. needs mainstream media to talk about something they don't wish to talk about, that is what we call a breakthrough. >> host: do you consider your politics to be conservative? where did you grow up? >> no i don't.

one of the things that motivates me is injustice. when andrew breitbart died i said this is all about exposing injustice and being a counterbalance. i have always been, people on my team have always been motivated by severe injustice in our society and lack of investigative journalism. if it is right-wing to expose abuse of power and fraud and corruption and government spending money they shouldn't, you can call me names if you want, doesn't matter what you call us. they deal in characterization and innuendo. i am a criminal, convicts, right-winger, this or that but doesn't matter what words you use to describe us, chicago sun-times won pulitzer prize for the pulitzer prize for going with a hidden camera into a voting booth and exposing the ease with which people commit voter fraud. we have done it dozens of times. we are never going to win a war.

we are just resurrecting a type of journalism was done 40 or 50 years ago. the difference is incorporation of technology, means of distribution let us get this to millions of people. we are trying not to conserve things. and get people reality. i can't alter what i am filming, i don't deal in characterization or -- i expose the world the way it is. >> host: you have been accused of selecting editing. >> guest: if you look at the specific criticisms katie couric actually did deceptively editor documentary it has been sued for defamation. the washington post retracted a headline about me. i never had to make such a retraction. these are obfuscation and ad hominems. there is nothing else for them to say. i have gone mainstream media to

print hundreds of corrections about me. i never in my career made a mistake that rises to the level they have made mistakes. mainstream media uses anonymous sources. i don't have a problem using anonymous sources but you can't only use anonymous sources to make your points, you have to use them sparingly and be credible. a lot of these, i use the example of the washington post who literally had to retract a headline about me three weeks ago. the headline was james o'keefe selectively edited this out, i did not selectively edit out question, the producer from atlanta retracted that. why isn't everyone saying he selectively edited. he did retract his article. if you look closely at the facts i have never actually

specifically made any specific edit. they are using that term as a characterization, ad hominem attack against me, this is how they were, this is something i am fighting. >> host: you mentioned saul lewinsky. where his tactics, did they work? >> guest: this problem at freedom fest, he is the son of saul lewinsky, didn't appeal to the sense of virtue but the christian ethic. how do you give power to these people? and taking power away. and so far, voter fraud does not

exist. my mission is to say it is possible, i have to mobilize power to the citizen, and the antagonistic what is in your self-interest. and accepting the world as it is. and people in churches, saul lewinsky was a major contributing reason a lot of churches are democratic voting blocs. it is not dogmatic. >> host: is there any concern about killing people when they are not aware of it?

>> guest: i don't believe so. it is necessary, the information is extreme public interest. the last big story was earthshaking. is supervising producer on tape, and investigative journalism focusing on russia, do you want to live in a world where people are accorded in elevators? probably not, it is of extreme public interest to show that. i will never going to someone's private bedroom, a guy was in a hotel room and was an attorney general of maryland, supposed to be taxpayer-funded conference, i tried to avoid the personal sexual nature of people's lives but when talking about matters of extreme public interest, the hidden camera used to win

pulitzer prizes for doing things, rented a bar in chicago for a year called the mirage and they put hidden cameras for one year at this bar in 1970, 75, 76 and recorded all these conversations and wrote about them. they were not surprised at the kickbacks and all these things. it is a powerful tool, a big responsibility. we have to use it sparingly but if you want to talk about deception and selective editing look no further than these anonymous sources. we don't even know what they are saying to the new york times. we can't read their intuition. we don't know their intonation. we have to trust the reliability of the institution and that has become corrupted in my opinion. >> host: how many projects? >> guest: i can't say. >> host: more than one? >> guest: our main target is the media and i will tell you and

your audience when i make a promise i always deliver. i told the inaugural ball in january i was going to expose mainstream media and we did and there are more cases coming here and they will be real big, significant, and the media is not doing its duty. they need to come to terms with what they have told us undercover. it is all about money, laziness, greed, lack of courage. these are the types of things we will be exposing and they will be significant. >> host: who is not a yahoo you write about? >> this is an individual working in some type of political operation to establish me in a personal way. people, i am a marked man. people tried to set me up, target me.

the difference is not a a tried to create a false accusation in court and create evidence, the judge threw it out, totally bogus but this is why people don't do what i do, you get falsely accused. we filmed the world as it is, we use hidden cameras, pose as something we are not but we don't manufacture, we don't create false evidence. i wish her film happened that night because it would show nothing happened. that is not how these people work. they are very machiavelli and. andrew breitbart, my mentor, told me they have an interest in not humanizing, they don't want to have a conversation we are having because to do so would be to humanize me, show that i am passionate and should care about justice, they don't want to do that. they want to make me seem like a criminal, and evil person. these are some of the battles i

have fought in my life, being arrested, the death threats, it is a deterrent to other people. if nothing else when i go to a conference like this and speak to people it is to give hope and say listen, let's join together, project veritas is about bringing more journalists on board. they can't shut me down, they won't shut us down. we are a nonprofit, more than half our donations come from hundred dollar, we are crowd source funded. no one has fiduciary control over me, and stories of public interest, i would challenge any of the anchors on these anchors how they lean so heavily to the left. conservative activists, call

rachel maddow, i don't make a political decision, if you look closely in the book, i don't say anything hopefully political. that is what we stand for. >> one would think given what you do, many death threats and setups you might get paranoid. >> no need -- >> used to be pretty glib about it didn't get into this worrying about safety. any time you do this work, safety is your number one concern, we have taken certain precautions and got into what those precautions were. and people who want to shut me down and don't like what we are exposing. i take it very seriously.

i can't tell you what we are doing as a precaution. >> host: you have another book coming. >> guest: i can't get into details because the publisher doesn't want me to. there was extraordinary information. after labor day, the next big bombshell, the mainstream media, and the tapes are secured. and the video process, all these networks embargoed the material on these stories, the stories spike at the last minute. mainstream media networks, afraid to report truisms for fear of the sdc revoking their license.

the next book tells this amazing story, and the interactions we had and what it all means. >> host: james o'keefe is the author of "breakthrough: our guerilla war to expose fraud and save democracy". booktv on c-span2 at freedom fest in los angeles. >> is a look at upcoming book fairs and festivals around the country. on saturday, september 2nd we are live in the nation's capital, the national book festival, with her presentation then viewer call in segments featuring alyssa prize-winning historian david mccullough, jd vance and former secretary of state condoleezza rice. sunday, september 17th, look for us at the brooklyn book festival with other discussions on the supreme court, immigrants, and more. later the baltimore book festival taking place at the

city's inner harbor and over 200 authors will speak at the southern festival of books. for more information about upcoming book fairs and festivals, click the book fairs tab on the website booktv.org. >> booktv visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. >> one was a wonderful book called the rise and fall of prohibition, the definitive history, how it got started, the ancillary movements the jointed, the women's suffrage movement was pro-prohibition and the disaster that created enormous violations of the law, frankly criminalized a lot of americans and led to a criminal

underground in our country. a tragic story of good intentions and a law that went bad. one of the best histories of prohibition i ever read. scars of independence by holder hook, east german but talking about the american revolution and this is the history of the violence of that revolution. we sugarcoat the american revolution, betsy ross, some people didn't get it. it was far more contentious. the violence was lethal. more americans died in prison ships in the revolutionary war than on the battlefield and it was an extremely violent period of time and this is the history of that violence. a sobering look at the american revolution. my favorite historical model,

steve taylor who writes about ancient rome. they are all histories and it is a wonderful sees and he is one of my favorite fiction authors to turn to, great history. in a similar vein but a different period, the tutor history in great britain. cj sampson has written a series of books about that period and has a character who solves the history but the history is superb, the writing i enjoy and i recommend him as an incredible writer. max hastings, british historian, the history of espionage and spies during world war ii, comes to the conclusion nobody was very great at it. there was an enigma but in terms

of realnetworks that were successful by any country, not many, a wonderful history of the rise of that client of espionage, biography of hugo black by roger newman, wonderful biography, he really gave us a lot of law, started as a ku klux klan member in alabama and became one of the great liberal justices of the supreme court showing that people can grow. he was an incredible justice of the supreme court. this writer, william freeling, the second of two volumes about the road to disunion, the civil war, extraordinary writing. very complex. there was a lot more complexity and nuance to the south before the break out of the war that one might have expected.

the border states and the southern states and the deep south, their attitudes towards slavery. what happened to the institutions, dying out in a lot of border states in northern parts of my state like virginia. they are great history documented lots of data. new biography of rescued and, a character who profoundly influenced czarist russia by douglas smith. incredible biography. russian history takes a little getting used to because the names are daunting and longer but the history is fascinating. rescued and debunks the mysticism of rasputin. a lot of people want to justify anti-czarist feeling or revolution or both kind of use

rasputin to justify that. the book goes through that very carefully. blood lands by timothy snyder is an extraordinary book about the terror of stalin and hitler. that struck the tens of millions of people who were murdered or succumbed to the policies of these two. stalin imposed a ban on the ukraine in the 1930s that devastated millions of people and it led to the welcoming of the nazis when hitler invaded in 1941. it did not go well with the occupation because he turned to be out as bad as stalin. fascinating history, very sobering and depressing because human beings could do what was done to that part of the world.

best years of their lives is a fascinating, wonderful book by lance morrow called best years of their lives about kennedy, johnson and nixon in 1948. kennedy and johnson getting elected, reelected to congress, johnson running for the u.s. senate and prevailing, developed his nickname for lyndon in a very close election. highly contested in texas but fascinating look at the times. these individuals dominated the latter part of the 20th century in terms of american politics. liberty and glory is the story of interaction between george washington and lafayette who had a long career after the american revolution including being a figure in the french revolution

until it went sour. was imprisoned for a long time but their relationship almost like father and son was highly unusual for washington and certainly very distinctive and impressionistic relationship with lafayette. lafayette became a gravedigger in art history and remains so today. just finished the silk roads by peter frank, a new history of the world from the central asian point of view in terms of the importance it once played and is again playing in terms of development of natural resources and the religion of silk roads china has undertaken. fascinating history. the war of the roses is the history of the house of york and the house of lancaster in the tudor dynasty in great britain. we think of the tudor dynasty is

long-lasting but it wasn't. it began with henry vii and ended do with queen elizabeth numb i. it is something that left an indelible mark on modern britain. two books i am reading today, when is a history of the habsburg empire. the pros is rather turgid. the history is fascinating but it is tough getting through. i will get through it but i wish it were a more interesting narrative style. we misunderstand it, we think of it as backward but there is nothing more vibrant and lively than that and led to a lot of interesting democratic institutions in part of the empire. the empire disintegrated after world war i and a fascinating novel, irish novel by martin okayed and written in irish and

translated into english, a combination of james joyce's stream of consciousness and thornton wilder and the concept of the dead talking about their conditions and the living. it is nothing but a series of narratives from people who are deceased, reflecting on what is going on around them and holding on to their grievances and joys, a fascinating read and i am enjoying it. that is sort of it for now. >> booktv wants to know what you are reading. send us your summer reading list via twitter@booktv or instagram@book a tv or posted to our facebook page facebook.com/booktv. booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers. here is a look at some authors recently featured on booktv's

afterwards, our weekly author interview program. former breitbart news editor explored the limits of freedom of speech. arizona senator jeff flake called for a return to the core principles of conservatism. pulitzer prize-winning journalist jesse i zinger examined how the justice department handles white-collar crimes. and coming weeks on afterwards radio host mark levin warns against federal government expansion, harvard university professor danielle allen will discuss how mass incarceration has impacted her family. this weekend on afterwards wall street journal writer and former editorial editor george malone offers his thoughts on his publication's influence. >> very strongly believes in free markets and free people, which was very unpopular with

the thousands call minors. he wrote an editorial defending the so call minors. money on mining stocks and that sort of things, workers have just as much right to organize as investors who organize business corporations so that was one of the points i make in the book is that kind of philosophy, fundamental philosophy has carried on pretty much through the history of the wall street journal. ..

>> you can watch all previous shows on our website, booktv.org. >> [inaudible conversations] >> good evening. [applause] >> good evening. my name is tom campbell of the regulator bookshop and we are thrilled to welcome nancy maclean here this evening for this marvelous