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Executives Caught on Video Making Bigoted Comments About Jews and Conservatives in Meeting with “Muslim Brotherhood”
By Adam Cassandra | 3/8/11

Investigative journalist James O’Keefe, the man behind exposing ACORN, released a new undercover video Tuesday morning that captures two senior executives of National Public Radio (NPR) engaging in a bigoted dialogue with journalists posing as agents of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“They’re seriously racist, racist people,” said NPR executive Ron Schiller, speaking about the Tea Party in the undercover video before mocking Evangelical Christians as “weird,” and agreeing that Jews control the media.

Schiller is the president of the NPR Foundation and senior vice-president of development for NPR.

The exchange between the NPR executives and two undercover journalists working for O’Keefe’s The Project Veritas took place on February 22, 2011 over lunch in a Washington, DC restaurant. O’Keefe was not one of the two undercover journalists, and the organization the journalists claimed to represent in the meeting is not real.

Posing as members of the Muslim Education Action Center (MEAC), which works to “spread acceptance of Sharia across the world” according to the group’s website, the journalists informed the NPR executives they were interested in donating $5 million to NPR, “out of concern for the defunding process that the Republicans are trying to engage in,” and to lessen the “Jew influence” and “Jew money” going to NPR.

After the undercover journalists informed Schiller that MEAC was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, Schiller stressed the importance of having “Muslim voices” in schools and on the air.

“I think what we all believe is if we don’t have Muslim voices in our schools, on the air,” Schiller says, “it’s the same thing we faced as a nation when we didn’t have female voices.”

According to an "Explanatory Memorandum" obtained by the FBI and submitted as evidence in the 2007 court case US v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, “The (Muslim Brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

The conversation then turned to the “fanatically involved” Tea Party that Schiller first calls “very fundamental Christian,” but then backtracks saying, “I wouldn’t even call it Christian. It’s this weird Evangelical kind of move(ment).”

Schiller goes on to say the Tea Party is, “not just Islamophobic but really xenophobic. I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America, gun-toting – I mean it’s scary.”

“They’re seriously racist, racist people,” Schiller concludes about the Tea Party.

Watch the video:


Schiller also takes shots at conservatives in general saying that, “liberals today might be more educated, fair and balanced than conservatives,” and then goes on to equate intellectualism with liberalism.

When asked directly by the journalist MEAC representatives about the Muslim Brotherhood and his thoughts on the uprising in Egypt, Schiller says he is “disturbed and disappointed.”

“The educated, so-called elite in this country is too small a percentage of the population, so that you have this very large uneducated part of the population that carries these ideas,” said Schiller. “It’s much more about anti-intellectualism than it is about (politics).”

On the issue of NPR’s funding, Schiller makes it clear that the government funded radio station would be better off without receiving taxpayer funding.

“Well frankly it is very clear that we would be better off in the long run without federal funding,” Schiller said. “[O]ur job would be a lot easier if people weren’t confused about (NPR’s federal funding).”

“NPR would definitely survive (without federal funding), and most of the stations would survive,” said Schiller.

Schiller’s comments in the video were aired just one day after NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller defended taxpayer funding for public broadcasting in a speech at the National Press Club.

Vivian Schiller also challenged critics of NPR’s government funded news to find any evidence of liberal bias in NPR's coverage.

Vivian Schiller and Ron Schiller are not related according to NPR.

When the MEAC representatives begin discussing the perception of Jewish control of the media, and the need for a more favorable Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas view on the airwaves, the NPR executives fully agreed.

Hamas is a US State Department recognized terrorist organization that controls the Gaza strip.

“Jews kind of control the media…toward a favorable direction of Israel,” one of the undercover journalists said as Schiller is seen nodding his head in agreement.

“The Palestinian viewpoint, since NPR is one of the few places that has the courage to present it – There’s kind of a joke. We used to call it National Palestinian Radio.”

“That’s good. I like that,” Betsy Liley, senior director of institutional giving at NPR, chimed in.

“That is the commitment,” Schiller says following Liley.

Schiller says that Jewish influence is there, “in those who own newspapers obviously, but no one owns NPR.”

The undercover video also catches the NPR executives discussing the termination of former NPR political pundit Juan Williams. Williams was fired from NPR in October of 2010 over comments made on Fox News’s The O’Reilly Factor in which Williams expressed unease at seeing people in “Muslim garb” on airplanes after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Schiller said at NPR, “they all agreed in the end, well of course you had to fire [Juan Williams]…What NPR did, I’m very proud of, and what NPR stood for is non-racist, non-bigoted straightforward telling of the news.”

“The question that we asked internally was, ‘When Juan Williams makes a statement like he made, can he report to the Muslim population and be believed?’ and the answer is no. He lost all credibility, and that breaks your basic ethics as a journalist.”

In response to the statements made by the NPR executives, Richard Viguerie’s ConservativeHQ.com launched a petition today to NPR’s board of directors to call for the immediate termination of NPR’s “bigoted” executives.

“The shocking video released today by Project Veritas shows NPR executives Ron Schiller and Betsy Liley engaging in bigoted anti-Semitic and anti-conservative dialogue with two undercover reporters,” the petition states. “Well now that Schiller and Liley’s comments have been caught on tape, haven’t they lost all credibility with Jews, conservatives and Tea Partiers? Shouldn’t Schiller, Liley and all other NPR executives be held to their same standard?”

I don't know what is worse. What the NPR executives did, the entrapment by the reporters, or based upon the emoticons used your giddiness? There sure is a lot of hate in the world.

Entrapment by the reporters????

I suppose you are pleased with the opinions of those who are paid in part with your tax dollars to take the stage and loudly crow about how much OTHER PEOPLE are bigoted and racist, but of course they aren't, at all.

I have NO PROBLEM with people having an opinion.

I have a HUGE PROBLEM with being Forced to Pay For people to spread their opinions, especially when their opinions are hateful and bigoted, and they want to say they are all peace and love and that all the bigots are on the "other side".

jc.

I just hate the way the word racist gets used in today's society.

Racist means one feels one race is superior to another. This article did not discuss races, it discussed nationalities and religious sects. (Muslims, Jews, Christians)

Journalist my ass.

I wonder how much video editing he did this to get his "message" out this time.

over 500,000 links that discredited the ACORN "expose".

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But, in all fairness, I didn't need anyone to tell me that some folks in the Tea Party are racists..

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That's what you got out of this?

NPR should receive zero public funding.. zero.

I will patiently wait until somebody who was all giddy over the guy that got the governor of Wisconsin to say some things about unions as he pretended to be a Koch brother to attempt to discredit this as underhanded...

No it doesn't I just wanted to show that there is a lot of evidence that it was edited (including the courts ruling so).

Do these "edits" show people saying things that they actually did NOT say?

Of COURSE it was edited. Does anyone want to watch the entire two hours or whatever length was taped?

Do YOU want to pay NPR to put out the opinions that they do? Does their Racism and Bigotry shed some light on their constantly pointing out the Racism and Bigotry of others?

I watched 11 or so minutes of it. (the link from yahoo).

Call me crazy here, BUT: the 2 from npr radio were invited out to eat. Now, they did say some things they probably shouldn't have, they made some generalizations they shouldn't have, but in all honesty - when someone is offering you $5 million dollars, that you didn't accept by the way, well, you kind of let them guide the conversation, don't you?

Like I said, some of the things the npr people said were just stupid - and the npr people did volunteer some info, but in the whole scope of things, all we really get out of this (at least the part I watched) was that they didn't accept the money, they made some jokes or laughed at some jokes they shouldn't have, in an ideal world, and they made some claims about funding that may or may not be true.

We all know npr is biased - that's not news. But I sure don't see this as a "smoking gun" kind of thing. Sure, the guy said we (npr) would probably be better off without gov't. money - but keep in mind who he thinks he's sitting with.

From having just watched it one time, I don't see this as anything like the ACORN videos - I put it more along the lines of the same type of thing the gov. of Wis. got put up to.........no biggy.

Maybe I need to watch it again?

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I just don't trust this "journalist" one bit to have not edited the tape. At least the Walker tape was unedited. But I do believe the two are different; we'll see how it plays out. I could be wrong.

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To watch the tape from about the 2 minute mark to about 3:05.. It does not look edited to my untrained eye.

With the actions this sick ... thing did in Louisiana he should be sitting in prison with Bubba.

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Read my entire post and you will see that what I was saying is, there are racists in all political parties... Some just hide it better than others.

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Schiller isn't in a political party (I'm sure he's a democrat but for the purposes of this video that is irrelevant).. what is relevant is that he runs a PUBLIC radio station that is supported with PUBLIC funds and he is calling Tea Partiers racist and bad mouthing the republican party to what he believes to be the Muslim freakin' Brotherhood... If he wants to do that then yank the public funding and let George Soros go ahead and foot the whole bill instead of just most of it to keep this radio station alive... if it was privately funded, he could say whatever in the heck he wanted.

I am happy that they were exposed, not that racism exists. I can use any emoticons that I want. What are you the emoticon Police?

I am happy when criminals get caught on camera and seeing stupid people do and say stupid things.

The ribbon around the finger is because it's something to remind you that you're wrong. That's so you don't have to make up up words for why I used that emoticon, like you did before.

Everyone on this board has a right to say what they believe and express their opinion.

The guy seems like a bit of a sheltered blowhard.

I'd heard a lot of talk about this on A.M. radio yesterday, just watched the video.

I wouldn't call the Tea Party racist by any stretch. However, there are racial undertones that permeate some smaller sects of the group. And, well, when you dress up like a clown, you welcome just about any criticism hurled at you. You can't trot people like Sarah Palin as a face of your group and expect to be taken seriously. But to call them racist is pretty shortsighted. Although there is certainly xenophobic and racist tendencies among those who set the stage that appeals to what would be erroneously labeled "conservative", so I can see what he's saying ... but he doesn't seem terribly bright on the matter.

With that said ... I wonder how many people who identify themselves with the Tea Party this guy has actually met?

I found it interesting that so many gasped at the fact that these guys posed as folks associated with The Muslim Brotherhood and ... gasp! ... this guy went out to eat with them civilly.

The Jewish comments ... they tried to bait the guy here, and what ensued didn't seem all that offensive. I find it very interesting that when talking about Israel, it somehow seems that one is taken to be talking about Jews.

Israel is a pretty unfair and brutal government. And they don't represent Judiasm. Just like the atrocities and brutality carried out by the American government is in no way indicative of or a condemnation of the American people.

This guy kind of comes off like a knob ... he comes off just about as I would imagine he would.

But, I have to ask ... how is this a news story? NPR executives caught on tape espousing "liberal" viewpoints?

Stop the presses!

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But, I have to ask ... how is this a news story? NPR executives caught on tape espousing "liberal" viewpoints?

Stop the presses!

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As long as they are receiving tax money they need to be as neutral as can be and squeeky clean... once they stop receiving government funding and George Soros takes over supporting them, they can go back to being the judgmental, hate filled, socialist espousing, little liberals they are now..

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/03/09/npr.ceo.resigns/index.html?hpt=T2

NPR CEO Vivian Schiller resigns

Washington (CNN) -- National Public Radio CEO Vivian Schiller resigned Wednesday, according to NPR.

Schiller's resignation comes a day after Ron Schiller, NPR's former senior vice president for fundraising, was shown in an undercover video calling the Tea Party "racist" and "scary" and questioning whether NPR needs federal funding. Ron Schiller, no relation to Vivian Schiller, issued an apology Tuesday night and said his already-announced resignation would be effective immediately.

Dave Edwards, chairman of NPR's board of directors, said in a statement on the NPR website that the board accepted Vivian Schiller's resignation "with understanding, genuine regret and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past two years."

Edwards said he recognizes "the magnitude of this news -- and that it comes on top of what has been a traumatic period for NPR and the larger public radio community. The board is committed to supporting NPR through this interim period and has confidence in NPR's leadership team."

Joyce Slocum, NPR's senior vice president of legal affairs and general counsel, was appointed as interim CEO under a succession plan the board adopted in 2009, Edwards' statement said. The board will establish a committee "that will develop a timeframe and process for the recruitment and selection of new leadership," he said.

Edwards credited Vivian Schiller with bringing "vision and energy" to NPR and leading it back from "the enormous economic challenges of the previous two years. She was passionately committed to NPR's mission and to stations and NPR working collaboratively as a local-national news network."

NPR spokeswoman Anna Christopher said she could not confirm reports that Vivian Schiller was forced out.

Filmmaker James O'Keefe said Tuesday the video featuring Ron Schiller was part of a sting operation. He said the idea stemmed from an incident in October when NPR fired analyst Juan Williams after Williams said he got scared when people wore Muslim garb on airplanes.

"My colleague Shaughn Adeleye who posed as one of the members of the Muslim Brotherhood was pretty offended with what happened with Juan Williams and he suggested looking into NPR after that incident back in the fall," O'Keefe told CNN's Brian Todd on Tuesday. "My other colleague, Simon Templar, came up with the idea to have a Muslim angle since Juan Williams was fired due to his comments. So we decided to see if there was a greater truth or hidden truth amongst these reporters and journalists and executives."

Williams has since been hired full-time by Fox News.

O'Keefe gained notoriety for posing as a pimp and secretly taping damaging conversations with employees at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform (ACORN). He was also involved in a failed plot to embarrass a CNN correspondent on hidden camera.

Ron Schiller and another NPR executive are shown on the video having lunch with potential NPR donors, who were really working for O'Keefe undercover. In the video, they pose as representatives of a Muslim organization considering making a $5 million donation to NPR.

"Tea Party people" aren't "just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic," Ron Schiller says on the recording. "I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting.
I mean, it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people."

He went on to say, "The Tea Party is fanatically involved in people's personal lives and very fundamental Christian. I wouldn't even call it Christian. It's this weird evangelical kind of move."

In the video, Ron Schiller says that NPR, which is partially funded by government money, would be "better off without federal funding."

"The problem is that if we lost it now, a lot of stations would go dark," he said.

Late Tuesday evening, Ron Schiller issued an apology through NPR.

"While the meeting I participated in turned out to be a ruse, I made statements during the course of the meeting that are counter to NPR's values and also not reflective of my own beliefs," Schiller said in a statement. "I offer my sincere apology to those I offended. I resigned from NPR, previously effective May 6, to accept another job. In an effort to put this unfortunate matter behind us, NPR and I have agreed that my resignation is effective today."

NPR spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm on Tuesday condemned Ron Schiller's remarks, saying they "are contrary to everything we stand for ... and we completely disavow the views expressed."

"NPR is fair and open minded about the people we cover," Rehm said. "Our reporting reflects those values every single day -- in the civility of our programming, the range of opinions we reflect and the diversity of stories we tell."

Rehm also decried Ron Schiller's statement that NPR would be "better off without federal funding," saying it "does not reflect reality. The elimination of federal funding would significantly damage public broadcasting as a whole."

Anyone gotten Juan Williams' response to NPRs troubles?

I have to wonder if he's stopped laughing long enough to respond ......

I'm sure he's happy they got rid of him. It exposed them to more scrutiny than they ever had before and the latest O'Keefe exposé cost the Schillers their jobs.