All language subtitles for People.You.May.Know.2020.WEBRip.x264-ION10

Engel: What is data?

Like, data is just information,

and we pray constantly
for wisdom.

Well, what is wisdom?

Wisdom is just having more
information than another person.

The anchoring verse
that was the marker

for what it is we were doing
was Nehemiah 1:1-4.

"Tell me about my people,
and tell me about my city."

So, Nehemiah --
they used data back then

to apply
to the certain people.

What they did is they knew
sort of this macro meta data

that said, "Hey, man,
things are really messed up,

and the people, they're --
I mean, they're jacked up.

Like, things are not going well.

We measured prayer requests.

Call it crazy, but it was like

we're sitting on mounds
of information

that could help us
steward our people.

So, Nehemiah, now that
he got this information,

what does he do?

He modeled praying,
he modeled fasting,

he modeled mourning,
and he modeled weeping,

but he also ended up doing
something based upon the data.

I'm also hopeful

to have Americans working again

by that Easter,
that beautiful Easter day.

But rest assured, every decision
we make is grounded

solely in the health, safety,
and well-being of our citizens.

Engel: Church has the one thing
that most companies

are absolutely desperate for,
which is relationship.

We own the relationship space.

Like, we own it.

That's the church.

Regular listeners will know that

the UK Digital Culture, Media,
and Sport Select Committee,

which I advise, has been
investigating fake news --

what it is, where it comes from,

and how big-data companies
are involved.

But after the revelations
about Cambridge Analytica,

the investigation
has dramatically widened.

Reporter #2: A data-analytics
firm that worked

on the winning election campaign
of Donald Trump

was involved
in one of Facebook's

biggest-ever data breaches.

I'm Charles Kriel.
I was the special advisor

to the House of Commons
Select Committee in the UK

that was investigating
data and Facebook

and Cambridge Analytica.

It was really exciting for me

because I'm half from Alabama
and half from Corning,

so that doesn't exactly scream
"parliamentary adviser."

This was the first real wade
into this territory,

especially by a government body

or parliamentary
investigatory committee,

so to be able to help
drive it as the adviser

was really exciting for me.

Collins: Welcome to
this further evidence session

of the Digital,
Culture,

Media,
and Sport Select Committee.

Dr. Kriel, would you like
to start us off?

Thank you very much,

and thanks for
having me along today.

I had written an article
about Cambridge Analytica

for NATO's
Center of Excellence journal.

Committee was due
to go and question

a number of American witnesses,

including people from YouTube,
Google, Twitter, and Facebook,

so I came in and testified.

The more
sophisticated operations

of, uh, companies like
Cambridge Analytica

will also use

five-factor personality
profiling on individuals

and then
group those individuals

and target them
specifically,

so it's to look for people
who are vulnerable

to certain types
of messaging.

What I'll do is I'll shoot
questions to the members

when we're in committee,
and those questions

will be questions
to ask the witnesses.

If someone came along,
said, "I want to --

I want to sort of --
I want to run a campaign

that is -- that is --

which is going to be
particularly relevant

to people that are
thinking of voting Republican

but have very strong
religious beliefs,"

would you say, "We actually can
create that campaign for you

because we not only understand
people's political motivations,

but we also
can identify people

with, uh,
strong religious beliefs"?

Hypothetically,
it would be possible

if you had enough data,
say, on, you know,

evangelical Christians
in America

to have a look
at that audience

and see
if there's a correlation

between that
and some political agenda.

Obviously, there are
very large church organizations

and
religious organizations

that might have access
to these types of data.

Yeah.
Could you say...

Did you notice

what Nix said at the time
about evangelicals?

I didn't notice at all what
Nix said about evangelicals

when he said it.

That went unnoticed
by everybody else.

Why don't you tell people
who you are

and what it is
that you do?

Okay, I will. First of all,

if you wonder why I'm drawing --
drawing in the baby's room,

it's the only room
that we have any room in.

Um, so that's the way that goes.

Um, my name's Charles Kriel,
and I'm the special adviser

to the UK House of Commons
Select Committee on Fake News.

Um, a lot of other things, too,

but that's one of many things
that I do.

I'm a specialist in
digital media, as you can see.

This is something
a lot of people don't know

about what brought
this iteration

of Cambridge Analytica
down

and how Alexander Nix ended up
answering to parliament.

How did you do that?

Um, well, Channel 4 hadn't done
their sting yet,

The question was

how do we get him
to come in and testify?

'Cause there was beginning to be
some scrutiny on him,

and we figured
he probably wouldn't.

So I drafted a letter
that was very complimentary.

"Oh, Mr. Nix,
you are so very, very great."

It's fair to say that
there'll be many people

who have given their data
to you

who are not aware
that their data

is then being used
in this way,

used to support
other campaigns.

I think
the first answer is that

this is not
particularly intrusive data.

This is not like someone's
given up their health data

or their financial data
or their -- their private data.

You -- You mentioned that you
have 4,000 or 5,00 data points

on everybody adult
in the United States,

i.e. the entire
voting population.

Does every adult
in the United States

know that you have 4,000
or 5,000 data points on them?

"Would you please come in
and sit?"

What kind of people

usually respond
to that kind of, uh, invitation?

Narcissists.

We're trying to make sure
that voters receive messages

on the issues and policies
that they care most about,

and we're trying to make sure
that they're not bombarded

with -- with --
with irrelevant materials.

And that
can only be good.

That can only be good
for politics

and indeed
of democracy.

It can be good
to the wider realms

of communication
and advertising.

How would you target millions
of people like me if you --

if -- because when we talk about
elections or big campaigns,

that's effectively what we're --
we're talking about.

It's not just the microtargeting
of a very small number of people

based on age
or geographical location,

but -- but a whole range
of people

who hold different views.

Here's what Cambridge Analytical
would say.

With 10 likes,
I can predict your behavior

better than your coworker,
but 300 likes,

I can predict your behavior
better than your wife.

But what they're really
saying there is

by algorithmically
observing your behavior,

I can learn to understand you

and figure out how to push you
to extremes.

So if you're somebody who is
politically in the middle,

it's really very unlikely

that I'm going to turn you
into an extreme leftist.

But if you were somebody
who was on the left

and pretty far out
in the margins of the left,

I can probably push you
to extremism.

I can get you so wound up
and so angry

because I know
what you're afraid of

or I know
what pushes your buttons,

and I can do the same
with the right.

What's new is I can micro-target
to scale,

so I can do this to
millions of people at a time now

and manipulate a population
to turn out to vote

for the person
I want them to vote for

or notto turn out to vote

for the person
I don'twant them to vote for.

Just hold that point.

I just got a quick...

Great, great.

My name is Sven Hughes.

I used to work
as head of politics for SCL,

the precursor
to Cambridge Analytica.

The big data

is something
that can be over time regulated,

and the commercial sector

will -- will kind of
clean up its act.

There's actually a much,

much more serious story
that sits behind this,

which has to do
with election financing,

the kind of companies
that put into power

and take out of power people
on demand for a price.

It's completely unregulated.

Pretty much the --
no one knows about it,

and the people who --
who do know about it

have a tendency
to end up dead in Africa.

With what you know,

do you worry?

Do you -- Have you got scared
in the process?

I've certainly warned
one of my team,

who was my deputy at the time,

when I left SCL
for ethical reasons.

I warned Dan Muresan,

"Don't mistake that
the operation security on this

is not good enough.

I'm pleading with you

to step out of this company now
with me."

He made his own choice,
and I said, "No."

And the next thing I heard,
he was killed on an SCL --

he died on an SCL contract
in Kenya some time later.

And this is
who Chris Wiley

was talking about
being his predecessor.

Yeah. So I was --
I was in that job,

then Dan Muresan, who's dead,

and then Chris Wiley,
who obviously is now

a household name.

A deal went sour, and...

again,
this is what I've been told,

so I'm not saying this
as a matter of fact.

But people suspected

that he was poisoned
in his hotel room.

I also heard
that the police got bribed

to not enter the hotel room
for 24 hours.

The period I'm interested in
is 2009 to 2011,

when you were
working on elections

in St. Kitts and Nevis,
uh, Dominica,

St. Vincent
in the Grenadines.

Well, I think,
as I said last time,

we don't generally like
to talk about specific clients.

I've turned down so much work.

I turned down work
for Libya, Syria.

I had someone sitting in front
of me offering me a stake

in a diamond mine
if I put them into power,

all these sort of things.

You know, the money you can make
by being unethical

is so extraordinary.

Disinformation is
one of the biggest threats

to democracy.

With a committee,

I really hope to make
a difference for the future.

Everything changed
the day Chris Vickery came in

and gave testimony,
which is really funny

because we had less people
come to that testimony

than any session
we had done at all.

Collins: Good afternoon. I'd
like to welcome Chris Vickery.

We're delighted that you've
been able to join us, Chris.

You've come all the way
from the West Coast

to be here
in London today.

You've got hackers,

and then you've got
what Chris does.

And hackers will break
into things and take data,

and they'll call the company
and go, "We've got your data,

and if you give us
so much money,

then you can have
your data back."

Chris Vickery does something
entirely different.

He finds data that is exposed,

and then he lets
the company know

and he offers his services

to help them prevent that thing
in the future.

So as he tells it,

one night, he was
hammering around on the Internet

and sort of listening
in the background to information

about the Cambridge Analytica
investigation,

and so he goes looking.

What is happening
is this database of truth exists

with all the data.

He finds a vast amount
of cloud data open to anybody

who registered for an account.

The database of truth,
which is starting to sound

a bit like
a science-fiction novel, um,

that's -- is that a sort of
constantly evolving organism,

which is get -- get sort of,
you know, richer and richer

depending on what --
what's put into it?

The database of truth
is fed --

the foundation,
apparently,

according to
what's written in there,

is the
Republican database

called
Data Trust Voter Vault.

There's a company
named Data Trust

that is very close

to the Republican Party,
the GOP in America,

so much to the point
that I would say

they could be considered
the same entity.

And then they add
state voter files to,

I assume, corroborate
what's in the RNC database.

Then they add
consumer purchasable data,

such as from Experian.

You know, it's limitless
what other companies

would sell you data
similar to Experian.

Then they add lists
that the candidate --

the campaign itself
gives to them.

Chris finds this data.

He, um, downloads it.

Uh, he makes, uh,
the authorities aware of it,

the FBI aware of it.

On this hard drive
right here

that I'm now delivering
to you guys in the committee,

uh, you will find
all of that.

After the session was over,
he gives us the hard drive,

and me and some of the MPs

are standing around
looking at each other.

And they're going like,
"I don't want to carry it out."

You know, like, "I don't want to
carry it out, either."

Nobody wanted to --

Nobody wanted to walk
down the halls with it.

It was really quite frightening.

Um...so they gave it to me.

There's a reason that not
many people have come forward

and spoken about
Cambridge Analytica.

I'm in Paddington Station,

and I've got this hard drive
on me.

And I'm -- I'm just terrified
with it.

I don't know what I'm doing
carrying it on my back,

trying to ferry it home
somewhere safe

to get it to people
to -- to examine.

I was sure that there must be
something on this drive

that would lead us to being able
to nail Cambridge Analytica.

So I've just had
a big interchange

back and forth with [bleep]

They've been working with us
supposedly for the past month.

I'm doing this
hard-drive investigation.

And it turns out they've got
one developer

less than half time
working on this.

That's just not gonna do,

and what's gonna happen
is this investigation

will end up
getting lost to history.

It's this alignment of very,
very wealthy interests

with political interests who
do not have democracy at heart,

who do not have people, um, in
their heart and in their minds,

um, and -- and how political
systems can be manipulated.

These things are aligning
with one another.

This story is going to be bigger
than Donald Trump.

It's gonna be bigger
than Brexit.

It's been another big week
in the news.

The Select Committee
are releasing our final report

on fake news and disinformation,

but really, it's about
something much bigger.

Look, I'm sorry if members
of this committee are unhappy

with the outcome
of the referendum.

I'm sorry if members of this
committee are unhappy with...

That's not --
I-I didn't say --

...Donald Trump being president
of the United States.

Cambridge Analytica is by no
means alone in being a provider

of immoral, irresponsible,
unethical services

to clandestine hidden hands
that pay big money for them,

and because political parties

aren't ever gonna
take those people on

because they rely on them
to get into power next time.

They're not gonna take on the
very industry that they can --

that can get them into power,
and once they're in power,

they're not gonna regulate
against that industry

because it got them into power
in the first place.

And if they turned
against the industry,

they'd be taken out of power.

The second session
was a disaster.

Nix came off as a victim.
It was a car crash.

And the fact is,
there's no evidence...Mr. Nix, yes, there is.

...to support
your position.

What you're doing now
is building a conspiracy.

So you have this sort of
Faustian game and relationship

that's going on
behind closed doors,

away from the public's gaze
at the moment.

And everyone's talking
about big data.

Sod big data.

It's like
a year and a half of work

and calling
Mark Zuckerberg

and -- and --
and pushing and pushing

and -- and writing on
this report for months,

and it just disappears.

This had been a year
and a half of all of our lives,

an unbelievable amount of work,

people staying up
all night long,

months on end doing the writing,

and it just disappeared
into a media black hole.

It was like lying in bed
in the middle of the night.

"Have I wasted the last couple
of years of my life?"

It just felt like everyone
was gonna get away with it,

and there wasn't a thing
I could do.

What was slam-dunk
on the drive, though,

was there was a lot
of information from America.

There were a lot of records
from America,

um, and it related
to voting and voters.

And in fact, there was a part

of the
Republican National Committee's

database on that drive.

Now, the next big election
coming up

is the 2020 election
in the United States.

This is Kat.
Please leave a message.

Hey, Kat, it's me.

I think we have to
go to America.

Whether it
has to do with religion,

our evangelicals
are here tonight,

and they're all over the place.

As congressional
testimony over Ukraine

started to heat up
a few weeks ago,

we learned that President Trump
took time out to pray.

Oh,
this God country.

A group prayer in the West Wing
with some high-profile guests,

as tweeted by televangelist
Paula White-Cain.

Now, a photo showed
Trump standing, eyes closed,

nearly two dozen
well-known evangelical leaders

with their heads bowed and hands
on his arms and shoulders.

What I'm trying to draw out
is I just think we've been --

This whole story has been
handled in the wrong way,

that we're talking
to the right people,

but we're talking to them
about the wrong things.

What's happening with Trump
and what's happening with Brexit

is just more evidence that.

Our first stop in America
was Sean Eib with Graphika...

...who'd been analyzing

the evidence
on Chris Vickery's hard drive.

I had also started looking at
the United in Purpose

data breach, which was the,
uh, 100 -- I believe

191 million voter records

that were found
exposed also by Chris Vickery.

United in Purpose
started off its life

as an evangelical group.

They made a coalition of pastors
that were simply doing

a "get out the vote drive"

within
their evangelical churches

and stuff like that to kind of
build out their voter database.

By the time Vickery found it,

they had grown 191 million
voter records.

That's essentially every
voting-age adult in the US.

Are these records the same
as the GOP data addressed?

This is supposed to be
the GOP's central location

for all their data.

If you look at
their total number of profiles,

they're pretty much
neck and neck.

Well, you win it
by five million,

youwin it by five million.

You're not acknowledging
a connection,

but it seems like you guys

sure do seem to get records
all at the same time.

It does not seem like
it makes a whole lot of sense

that an evangelical group
would need

191 million profiles.

There aren't that many
evangelicals in America.

I think it's somewhere
a quarter of Americans

identify as evangelical,
which would be like 75 million.

So there's definitely a lot of
people that are in there

that didn't sign up for it.

Vickery also found
28 million records

that were
highly enriched profiles.

Believe that was the one
he found himself in,

where it had like
60 different issues,

and it was predicting
people's stance on that issue.

And for the -- for the layman,
what does "enriched" mean?

So enriched -- they have
added in extra data saying,

"Okay, this is a likely voter.

This is a likely swing voter.

This person is likely to vote
based on this issue."

You were a kind of one-position
voter based on abortion.

Doesn't matter what other
policies you support,

all those you
can kind of ignore.

This is the one
that's important,

So it's a pretty deep level
of, like, understanding

of of what can what
you can expect a person to do

when they go to cast their vote.

That's interesting because
there's supposed to be

a separation
of church and state.

Oh, yeah.
No, they're supposed to be.

Um, it doesn't seem like
it works all the time.

Okay, he's coming.

How's the sound quality?

Conservative churches in America
are often used to spread

a number of clearly partisan
political messages.

They're used to mobilize
and drive voter participation,

so when I went to meetings
of the pastor networks

like Watchmen on the Walls
and Church United,

what I saw was
these national leaders

who were focused
on, uh, partisan political gain.

They were going around
the country to swing districts,

often in advance
of key elections,

and then working to shape
the views of pastors

and then encouraging
these pastors

to become politically engaged

in what were clearly
partisan ways.

Imagine a data platform
designed to help you

improve the lives
of individuals,

the health of families,

and the vitality
of communities.

Insights from Gloo is the
world's first big-data platform

centered around personal growth
and development.

It provides a 360-degree view
of your audience

with
a privacy-protected database

that includes more than
2,200 data points

for nearly every US consumer.

Every point of data
moves you one step closer

to understanding the needs
of your current people

and those in your
surrounding community

so you can reach them

with the right message
at the right time.

That could be people
battling substance use

and mental-health issues

or young people
seeking their spiritual path.

Maximize your capacity
to change lives

by leveraging insights
from big data

so you can understand
the people you want to serve,

reach them earlier,

and turn their needs
into a journey towards growth.

That's outrageous.

Is that
on the market at the moment?

They took it down.

That's outrageous.
Basically, the same --

This is Cambridge Analytica
by another name.

God help us. We're going to hell
in a handcart. God help us.

So this guy Brent,
like overnight,

he sends me a thousand messages
from Melbourne.

Hey, Brent,
welcome to New York.

I wake up in the morning,

and my notifications
are completely full.

Usually,
because I have to deal with

a lot of conspiracy theorists,

one of the way that I ways
that I filter them out

is if they can't be brief,

so my immediate thought
about Brent was,

"Oh, God, it's another
conspiracy theorist."

But then I started going through
the evidence,

and it was extraordinary.

When it got
to the point where, um...

Cambridge America
was bankrupt,

I followed up on a kind of
thought experiment, really,

which was go through
the creditors

in the -- in the Cambridge
Analytica bankruptcy case.

Now,
the creditor/client --

because that's the assumption,
that the creditor is a client --

was Philanthropy Roundtable

that's funded
by the Koch brothers...

...and they set up
Culture of Freedom Initiative.

They're funding projects
to do with families,

marriage,
and church attendance,

and one of
the key projects

that they were promoting
over the last few years

is their
Smart Ministries initiative.

Spahn: No matter
your experience, no matter race,

gender, or economic status,
there's just hurt.

Like, this world hurts us.

There's a world of difference
between peace and freedom

that only the spirit offers

and relief, which we can find
in a bunch of different ways.

I got invited through
my roommate,

and I was very hesitant
and skeptical.

It's like my brain
has been rewired

to see people
and situations differently.

To have these relationships now
has changed my life.

I would like to thank the
Culture of Freedom initiative.

Without you,
I would not be where I am.

Smart ministries
or -- or data churches --

or --
what does that mean, really?

There's a push within
what I would describe

as prosperity Christianity.

The Culture Freedom Initiative
set up a contract

and a church ad company in
Boulder, Colorado, called Gloo,

and they set up
a platform,

which is
a microtargeting plan.

And they're marketing that
very aggressively to churches

as a way of expanding their
outreach to new worshippers

to increase the size
of the congregation,

and it's also the means
by which the congregation is...

And so they
discuss openly

in some of
the background documentation

that if
you target people

who are suffering
from relationship stress,

then you're more likely
to get the kind of flow

on attendance
at church,

and -- and they're more likely
to donate twice as much

as existing
church members.

And so the data is...

The concern for me is
if you put these techniques

in a religious environment
of any kind,

a religious group of any kind,

an audience that is ripe
for information, um, influence,

what they are doing there
is trying to, um, create

an unknowing universe of control

in which vulnerable people
are situated,

and this group of people
who have an agenda

are talking, saying,
"We know what's right for you,

so what we'll do
is create the context

that when you're at
your most vulnerable,

we're there for you."

Absolutely, without question,

those are the same techniques
that ISIS, Al-Qaeda,

the Taliban have been using

and we've been fighting
for many -- for many years,

which is the -- the parasite,
if you like,

of the infrastructure
of a religion

to put in a malevolent message.

Um, yes, absolutely,
that's a concern.

Sven calling it radicalization
really hit home for me

because a big part of my work
is doing counter-radicalization

out on --
out in frontline states,

and these techniques
are the techniques

that are used in radicalization,

whether you're talking
about Islamic State

or you're talking
about neo-Nazis.

Engel: We've developed and have
built the largest data platform

that --
that I know of in the world

that's missionally-aligned.

The church has the one thing
that most companies

are absolutely desperate for,
which is relationship.

We lost him.

The rushing source, the origin
of the air, the garden gone.

Now, ever over
a distant horizon, we lost him.

We chose to be without,
unaware of what we had.

All of us together alone
have forgotten what we lost.

My name is Gloria Beth Amodeo.

I'm a writer who lives
in Brooklyn, New York,

and I was an evangelical
Christian for seven years.

And I was converted
by Campus Crusade for Christ,

which is known now as Cru.

Cru's mission is to convert
basically the entire world

to the belief that Jesus Christ
is Lord and savior

and no one goes to heaven
without believing in him.

I was at college in New Jersey,

and so I was a part
of Jersey Cru.

"Look how good
and pleasant it is

when brothers
live together in unity,"

and then we have here, "Taking
the state for Christ together."

I was a very vulnerable
college student.

My mother had a pill addiction
when I was growing up,

and I got just super scared
about being out of control,

about the idea of, like,
fraternities and sororities

and of college drinking
and drug culture.

I walked into an office
of student life,

went up to a teacher, and I
remember, you know, just saying,

like, "Hey, I'm really scared.

I don't want to be pushed
into doing anything

that I don't want to do."

You know, other student,
after I left the office,

she kind of ran after me.

She said, "Hey,
so I know your concerns.

I'm really sorry
that you went through that

and you got scared."

She happened to be the president

of the Campus Crusade
for Christ Club.

This person really became
a mentor in my life.

I was just trying to figure out

what my life
was going to look like,

who I was,
and -- and who I wanted to be.

"An intimate message
from God to you.

My child, you may not know me,

but I know everything
about you."

All of these things
that, you know,

when you're vulnerable,

it sounds really --
it sounds really good.

But what you're trained to do
when you're in Cru

is identify those ripe apples.

They knew that with me,

they had an opportunity
to go much deeper.

When I heard Campus Crusade
for Christ, I thought,

"Oh, Christians, like me.

I should be able to fit in
with these people."

What I didn'thear at the time
was "evangelical Christian."

Some girl gave me
this little heart.

This is the type of stuff
that keeps you in it,

you know, when you form
these really strong bonds

and, you know,
you're basically told, like,

"I'm always here for you.
I love you."

In a way,

getting to know them
on all of these other levels

before they introduce
their fundamentalist beliefs

made me trust them more
in a sense

and made the beliefs
seem less extreme

than I came to realize later on
they were.

They hook you up with
a staff member, a Cru discipler,

who is somebody who does not
go to college on campus,

is above the age of 21.

They're married with children,

and they have this, like,
idyllic adult life.

I think that that's, like,
a part of the tactics.

Seeing that makes you think,
"Oh, wow, this is possible."

Once she told me,
"Jesus loves you.

Nothing's gonna take
God's love away,"

all the warm, fuzzy stuff,
after a few months,

then she starts saying, "The act
of homosexuality is a sin.

Abortion is murder.

And if you're really
going to have this big,

beautiful, wonderful life,

you have to believe
these things, too."

We had a whole women's day

and -- and reflection questions
that we had to answer.

This first section is called

"Present Your Bodies
as a Living Sacrifice."

Her baby -- she was bouncing
her baby on her lap,

I remember, at the time
that we talked about this.

When, you know,
you're married, as a woman,

you're supposed to submit
to your husband.

I remember fighting against
the Cru staff member.

I was like, "Why would I ever
have to submit to my husband?

That sounds so strange. Like,
do yousubmit to your husband?"

And she said, "Oh, yeah, I do,
but -- but it's not so bad.

It's not as bad
as you think it is."

Like, she said,
"'Submission' only means

that he gets to have
the final say."

And what happened was
my disciplers,

the girl who converted me,
slowly started to tell me

that I needed to start
cutting my family out.

You know, they said, "Your mom's
not very good for you.

You shouldn't talk to her
on the phone anymore."

So very slowly, they began

isolating me
away from my family,

and eventually,
they started isolating me away

from my non-believing friends,
as well,

who they felt like had too much
of an influence on my life.

This here, underneath
"your short-term goals,"

what Cru's mission was --
"continue to target

those in your life
who need salvation."

Yeah, the word "target" there
sticks out to me.

Cru is a global organization,
yes.

Uh, they even are involved
in the military,

interestingly enough.

They have
a whole military chapter.

Says the main goal here,
"Take the state together

and then take the country,"
is the -- is the idea.

Do you see
any flags there

about people's
personal vulnerabilities

or emotional vulnerability?

I don't think
that would be something

they would broadly advertise
because it sounds like

an evil supervillain thing
to do.

So, alright,
so go ahead and say it again.

You want me to just --
a little bit about who I am?

The big question on this is,

why would the Koch brothers
do this at all?

Because they're not known for
being particularly religious.

So to dig into this further, um,

we thought we'd start
at the source

and go to the founder
of Communio/COFI.

In 2014, I started the
Culture of Freedom Initiative

at the Philanthropy Roundtable,
and I had --

my public policy world used

and worked with
predictive analytics

and -- and big-data tools
within public policy

to identify folks who would be
persuadable on certain issues.

What would it look like
to use it within --

within the realm of ministry?

And so we,
through the initiative,

funded the development
of the data Insights platform.

Gloo already had
some initial funders,

and we provided funding over
time and helped to develop it

and helped to test it
for a few years.

The multi church test
using the data

with a focus
on relationship ministry.

Every large company
in the world,

if you sell consumer products
of different sorts,

are trying to figure out
good ways to market that,

and there's no better product,
really, than the gospel.

Religious nones are on the rise
in America,

only these nones
are not religious at all.

They check the box
for "none," N-O-N-E,

on surveys
of religious affiliation.

But a growing number
of churches

working in partnership
with Communio

are seeing double-digit
increases in weekly membership

and collections
by architecting their ministry

around strengthening the core
building block of community --

the family.

Communio's playbook is
now available to your church.

We help a first church diagnose
some -- some opportunities

around their church campus

by identifying an audience of,
say, 5,000 folks

within 5 to 10 miles
of a church's campus,

maybe have a marriage based on
the consumer products data

looks like
it might be struggling,

and so in their marriage,
they have young kids,

and they're open
to an invitation to church.

And then we'll reach out
and help them

design ministry outreach
invitations through Facebook,

where we'll reach out
to that group of 5,000

or 10,000 folks
who fit that risk area

and invite them in.

Come to a date-night event
at the church

with that child-care provider.

They'll meet people
at the church.

Invite them over for dinner,

invite them
into their small group.

Now these couples who
didn't previously have as robust

of their own
personal network of friends

are introduced to these folks
who want to know them.

Those couples can be guided
over time

into what we would call
a growth journey.

I think
I read an article

that you said
you kind of worked

with the original data guys,
Cambridge Analytica,

when you set it up.
Is that right?

We worked with a number
of -- of data vendors.

We worked with, um -- in my old
world in -- in public policy,

there is no shortage
of really good vendors.

i360 is one of them. Um, uh...

From an efficacy perspective,
um,

there's a lot of really good --
a lot of good firms out there,

and, um, uh,
we've worked with --

we've worked with
a number of them.

And with funding,
I mean,

is it really passionate
private investors?

Yeah, you know,
I think you've hit on something

that's really central
to the American experience.

Tocqueville talked about it
in his "Democracy in America."

We have this really
robust tradition in our country

of solving problems
through voluntary civil action.

The United States has

the largest group of
charitable donors in the world,

give more away in charity
than any other country.

So, yeah, there's a lot
of committed Christians

who we've met with
and understand

that, you know,
these resources that they have,

they see them as not theirs
but God's.

Is there anybody
you can mention by name?

Is there anyone
you want to --

No, because what we do,
you know,

most charities are this way.

You protect the privacy
of the person

largely because
it's a gospel imperative.

You don't want the right hand
to know

what the left hand is doing.

I'm from Alabama.

All of this stuff happens
where I'm from, where I grew up,

people I knew, churches I went
to when I was younger.

Um, it was really time
for us to, you know,

if we're gonna move
this investigation forward

to head for the Bible Belt,
let it out a couple of notches.

How does it feel to be
in the south, Charles?

Well, it feels like a promise
of decent weather.

The program isn't the only one.

Um, there are programs
around grief,

around addiction recovery.

There's programs around divorce,

programs around
financial trouble.

They're all trying to draw
nonreligious people

into the church.

If you feel like
you're alone in your grief,

be encouraged that you are not.

Whatever you're facing,
others have faced it, too,

and at a loss of a spouse event,

there are people waiting
to help.

You'll learn what to expect

in the weeks and months
after your spouse's death

and how to survive
the loneliness.

For more information,

talk with your pastor
or GriefShare leader.

That is a real baptism,

not as a ritual baptism,
which is by water.

Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Notice the difference
between the symbolism

and the real thing.

Turn right.

Just going offroad mode.

We are going offroad.

This is some kind of road
to church.

So we are heading to
the Peace Lutheran Church today

to, uh, speak
to Pastor Zandt.

I've been in ministry now
for 18 years.

I've said this to my leaders,
my congregation --

the most, if you will,
successful form

of connecting
God's love

to these people
in their lives

has been
at the moment of grief,

and GriefShare
has been a part of that.

Hi, I'm Kathy Fallon,
and I'm super excited

to let you know
that starting today,

people can register
for you groups online.

They have a leader portal
that you can get on

and access some of
their publicity materials.

They have things
specifically designed

for bulletins and fliers,
newspaper ads,

things that you can host
on Facebook,

little videos
and so forth.

Sometimes,
I forget Jodi's gone.

I knew in my head,
you love God,

you trust him, you pray.

And that doesn't guarantee
that things are gonna go well.

GriefShare has been a tremendous
blessing to our church.

This young woman that
went through an amazing loss

in her life,
she was not a believer.

GriefShare --
the answers were given,

and she gave her heart
and life to Jesus.

And they have
a lot of sign-ups.

I saw each month,
it's --

it grows exponentially
really fast.

Yes,
it does, yes,

and they have
new types of entry events.

They have
"Surviving the Holidays,"

those who are preparing
for Thanksgiving, Christmas,

as you know,
very difficult times,

to give you tools
to help you through that,

and then
they introduce you

to the 13-week series
of GriefShare, uh,

to give you a taste
of what that's like.

Skeptics.

A man of science,

but a man of faith,
and he stood in front of me.

And when he would stand
in front of the people

and teach them the prayer,

you know
how he explained prayer?

He said, "It's simply this --
it's a chit-chat with God."

Chit-chat with God.

In the late '90s, that's when
the church growth movement

was at its height.

You know, you had the Saddleback
community churches,

you had the Willow Creek's
model for outreach.

There is to some extent
an expectation

or a pressure many times
from the congregation to conform

or to try to find outreach

similar or reflective of
some of the great models

that came out of Saddleback
and in Willow Creek.

He wrestled with God. All the...

For me personally,
ministry has been a challenge.

We're seeing in the midst
of Christianity

schisms left and right, um,

that trickles down
into the congregation.

The institution of church
in the states

is so powerful
and so moneyed.

Do you ever worry
about exploitation,

about the churches
not being

what Christianity
is supposed to be?

Do you see
examples of that?

Do I worry about it?Yeah.

Every single day.

Every single day.

David was a great guy
and a really good church.

You know, he seemed like he was,
um, part of a big system

but not part
of the machinations of it,

so what we needed to do is move
on to -- to a bigger church,

something a little more mega.

Where we rolling out of?

Montgomery, Alabama.

I used to live here
a long, long time ago.

Not many stick around that much.

We're headed to Fairhope now.

It's my favorite part
of Alabama.

Is the baby happy?

Yeah.

Aww, is she staring out the --
is she staring out the sky?

Yeah.

Katalina?

Hi, I'm Mike.Nice to meet you.

This is Carrie.

Hi, Carrie,
nice to meet you.

I'm so glad
y'all are here with us today.

This is
our office space,

and, uh, kind of a -- kind of
a new space for us.

Our different groups
like GriefShare

that meets here
during the week.

Okay,
that's great.

So this
is where we meet.

We average
about 13 people,

but I think when we started,
there was about 20,

25 people
that kind of enrolled.

And so sometimes,
they can make it,

sometimes,
they can't.

The most amazing thing about
Celebrate Recovery

is the idea of a person
who's been abused worshiping God

in a room next to a person
who was an abuser,

and God's honored by it.

I -- Do you understand?

Do you know what I mean?

That's what God's capable of
through Celebrate Recovery.

That's the difference
between Celebrate Recovery

and most other
recovery programs.

So this building --
this was the original building,

by the way,

that was built here
in the year 2000.

It has been
a number of different things.

So if we continue walking,
this is our brand-new space.

We've been --
We've been here

just four Sundays now.

State-of-the-art
computer check-in.

Type in their name,

and ups pops
all their information.

You say, "Check in, my child,"
and it checks them in.

And how big
is your congregation?

On Sunday morning,
we typically --

around 3,000 in total.

So you've got quite
a young demographic, then.

I do.
Lot of young families

gather here with us
on Sunday mornings.

Do you -- Do you make
specific efforts

to -- to make that happen,
or is it just --

We do, we do.

We use a variety of tools
to -- to be able

to, uh, kind of leverage
social media

and modern technology
with, uh, with -- with church.

It helps us attract people.

It helps us to, uh, track teams.

It helps us to keep track of all
the -- of the kids that are here

and, um, and everything,
donations.

We do Facebook Live on --

we were talking about that
on the weekend,

so our services
are broadcast live.

Our preschool space,

where the --
our little ones gather.

Oh, this great.

This is new,
a new wall that they put in

to kind of give parents
an idea

of how much longer
they have with their children.

I had a lot of questions
about that baby wall.

I recognize that
from that church's app,

who did this countdown
to days of influence thing.

So each of the little
foam things in there

represents the --
the weeks that you have,

so as a baby,

you have 936 weeks
to influence your child.

You know, you can be sure
in that app

if you've got
your push notifications on,

it's, uh, waking you up
and reminding you.

It's like, "You've only got
877 days to save your child."

It's a behavioral
design mechanism.

And then when
you come over here,

when your child is now
a senior in high school,

you only have
52 weeks left.

Oh, don't make her cry.

That's really powerful.

It's very powerful
to me, just --

Yeah. Yeah.
Just a reminder of, you know,

the -- the top of the clock
is ticking

and time is limited

to -- to influence your child
for -- for good.

How will you use
your time?

Yeah.

It's mostly software-based
where we can --

it's -- it's tracking.

It's really we're able to
custom tailor it to what we do,

how we track people,

how we want to communicate
with those people.

The data that you have on -- on
the people who already come --

Doesn't that help you reach
other people in the community?

Sure, sure. When you're talking
about, you know,

a database of 20,000 or so
people,

20,000 people
know a lot -- a lot of people,

so -- so it -- it --
it gets all over.

If you come to a point where --
where --

God's in control.

You can't go two miles here
without a church.

I have to say,
as a European,

seeing how powerful

and moneyed
these churches are,

I'm -- I'm amazed.

Well,
Americans are big believers,

and a lot of that has to do
with money, too.

If you're British
and you are working-class,

it doesn't matter how much money
you make in your life,

you will always
be working class.

And if you're upper class,

it doesn't matter how much money
you lose

or how much reputation,
you will always be upper class.

True.

And in America, everybody's like
three paychecks away

from getting thrown out
of their house.

If you get rich,
then you can go in a restaurant

and flip the table over.

They're gonna invite you back

as long as you can pay
for the bill.

And if you are poor,
you're just out,

so nobody in America
really knows where they stand.

And when you don't know
where you stand,

then you have to invoke systems
that you can find your place in,

and so Americans
become real believers.

There's the battleship
USS Alabamajust over there.

Good eating, good drinking,
and it's damn good music.

It feels good every time
I get back to Alabama,

and -- and it feels strange
at the same time.

It's home and it's not home
simultaneously.

I spent about half my childhood
in deep South

and when I wasn't out traveling.

I identify with the South now,

even if I don't identify
with Southern politics.

I've been living in Europe
for 30 years,

although I've lost my accent.

You know when I go back home,
people think I'm Canadian.

At this point, my head was full.

Multiple companies that seemed
to be helping people,

but did they have a dark side?

I needed to see Chris Vickery.

With that hard drive
he brought to parliament,

he was the first person
who explained how it all worked.

I mean, what does the church
know about you data-wise?

The church
doesn't need to know data-wise.

The church just needs to know
your name,

possibly your address...Mm-hmm.

...maybe your
phone number.

That's a good identifier,
too.

Then United in Purpose

and -- or any other
big-data operation

has all the data already
about these different names.

The data
they don't necessarily have

is what church
you go to.

That's where the link
comes together.
Okay.

And so if they have, say,
a name and a phone number,

they can match it up
to everything else --

all your views,
the websites you go to,

your --
your Facebook handle,

your Twitter commentary,
all that stuff.

And they've already got
a sentiment value on you,

and they know
whether or not

you're a likely
Trump voter or not.

They just need to know
what church you go to.

I'm from
the Bible Belt.

This is my community.
You know, it touches me.

This is people I went
to high school with.

This is
people that I know.

They are learning

who is likely to be
a drug addict,

who is likely to be, uh,
going through a divorce

because, uh, well, they don't
come out and say this,

but, uh, those are
the types of people

that are
easily manipulated.

Chris Vickery made it clear that
this whole thing was political.

Um, the voter-record leak
was from United in Purpose,

a company that was founded

by a guy who had been
convicted for embezzlement.

Um, my concern, though,
was on the big prize,

which is the 2020 election.

Could you maybe talk
a little bit about

how somebody would use
a third-party data set

for a church app,

that -- how that can then
be used politically?

Well...

if you can figure out
that 95%

of the people
that are interested in Thing A

are overlapping with people
that tend

to join your church
in your area,

then you don't need
to guess and target --

you can target the people in
your area that have Trait A.

If you know
that this person

buys these things
at the grocery store

and you know that their friend,
you know, Beth,

comes to the same church,
has a kid about the same age,

but you don't have her
grocery-store information,

If you have three other friends
that you do,

you can pretty much guess
that she buys

about the same type of brands
that these other ones do.

So even though you only have
one little spoke here,

it feeds back into

the main data pool
of predictability,

and all of a sudden,
you have this ability

to enumerate things
about Beth

or you can draw it out
in -- in other teasing ways.

But someone might say,

"It's just my name
and my phone number."

For one individual,
yes.

With one person,

it's like
one single grain of gunpowder,

the explosive powder,

and you can, you know,
light that with a match.

And, you know, that was fun.
You know, no harm done.

But when you've got, uh,
a huge pile of it,

you don't want a match
to get anywhere near it

because it'll kill you.

They will go to
a big megachurch,

get the pastor,
preacher,

to give them a database
of members of the church,

and they'll run it through
their systems and figure out

who's registered to vote
and who isn't.

And they will identify

people that are
registered to vote,

like the social conservative,

Republican conservative
type feelings,

very anti-gay,
very anti-abortion,

very hard line,

and they'll find
one of those people

and make them
into a champion.

And then
it's up to the champion

that is
a registered voter

to convince the non-registered
congregation members

that feel the same way
to register to vote,

so it's a very selective
cherry picking of,

"We want these certain types
of religious people

to register to vote
and then vote."

It's all there on paper, but,
uh, when you map it all out,

it looks like
one of those conspiracy boards.

Conspiracies happen behind
closed doors with unnamed actors

attempting to deceive
the public.

They happen in the dark.

This is happening in large part
out in the open.

They're using
the tools of democracy

to dismantle democracy.

It's not really that
they're trying to deceive us.

It's that we're not listening.

I'm always online trawling

and I'm paying
a lot of attention to the news,

and on Chris' Twitter feed,

this journalist and author
pops up.

Her name is Anne Nelson,

and she's suddenly talking about
an organization

that seems connected
to every aspect of this.

That's the
Council for National Policy,

and Bingo, there we are.

This is a defining moment
for our generation.

And our people need leaders.

Pastor, lead,
and the people will follow.

America is crying out
for leaders.

We see what happens when we
don't elect and choose leaders.

America is ailing.

America is dying
for the lack of leaders.

Anne was about to launch a book

with the Texas Book Festival,

so it was
back on the road again.

This time, I took my mother,
who's a writer, Judith Richards.

How is it driving
in this weather?

Um, I'm aware that everyone
I love is in the car.

How did you come across
this story?

I came across it visiting
my family in Oklahoma...

...driving to Walmart
and having the radio on

and idly turning this --
the tuner to a different station

and coming across
a fundamentalist broadcaster.

Dobson: The homosexual community
will tell us

that transformations
never occur,

that you cannot change.

We did research
on those who attended

just one of a number of
ministries for at least a year,

and out of those,
38% of the people

who attended
this large ministry

no longer struggle
with homosexuality.

Those are success stories,
as well.

Even if they struggle,

if they continue
to walk with Jesus,

that's a win
for the kingdom of God.

At the time, I thought,
"Well, this must be

just some local outlet
with this opinion,"

and then when I pursued it,

I found out it was part
of a network of 100 stations

that was part of
a trio of networks, radio,

and then multimedia platforms.

I just kind of followed
the media analysis

back to
the Council for National Policy,

which I'd never heard of

until I-I did this research
two years ago.

What is
the Council for National Policy?

The Council for National Policy
is a network of organizations

interested in advancing
an ultra-conservative agenda.

The meetings are secret.
The membership is secret.

The publications for the public
are next to non-existent.

We're here.

It's all well and good
to be a one-man band,

but I'm no
investigative journalist.

I needed to understand it all,

so I called in
the troops in Texas.

Anne Nelson
has received

a Livingston Award
for journalism

and a Guggenheim Fellowship
for her historical research.

A graduate
of Yale University,

she's taught at Columbia
University for over two decades.

She's a member of
the Council on Foreign Relations

and the New York Council
on the Humanities.

She's a native
of Oklahoma,

which we may talk about, uh,
and now lives in New York City,

and her book that we're here
to discuss today is

"Shadow Network:
Media, Money,

and the Secret Hub
of the Radical Right."

The Council
for National Policy --

Kellyanne Conway is a member.

Steve Bannon is a member,

uh, and then I went through
the members

of Trump's
evangelical advisory council.

About a third of the members
of that council are members.

The influence is quite striking.

They have a social agenda,

which is to roll back civil
and political rights

for the LGBT community,
women, and others.

The three components tend to be
religious fundamentalists.

Another part of the hub is

is the extractive industries,
oil interests.

And the third component
are political operatives

who have been trying to push
the Republican Party

to the right
since the Nixon administration.

In order to achieve this,
they have to really reify

the idea of the United States
as a Christian nation

in which their form
of Christianity is dominant.

It involves allowing
their churches

and their religious
organizations to function

as full-fledged
partisan political activists

while maintaining
their tax-exempt status.

June 21, 2016, they invited
a thousand fundamentals leaders

to New York City to meet Trump
on his home ground,

and they cut a deal.

And the deal was
pretty transparently

that they would lend
their ground troops,

their data operations,
which were very advanced,

and their strategists
to the Trump campaign

in exchange for
three vital elements.

One was allowing them
to fully participate

in the selection
of federal judges.

One was an evangelical council
that was dominated by members

of the
Council for National Policy.

The religious leaders in
the Council for National Policy

have been -- become converts.

Many of them were Never Trumpers
before June 2016,

and they decided that Trump,
if he was not a manof God,

could be an instrumentof God.

They call him Cyrus
after the Persian king

who helped restore the Jews
to Jerusalem,

and Cyrus was not a man of God.

He was an instrument of God.

Their theorists
will say outright

that the American government
is slated for destruction.

They think
that it should be destroyed.

In that way,

they hope to use Trump
as God's wrecking ball.

By the time we arrived,

Brent had a surprise for us --
the Council for National Policy.

You hacked them?

No, no, no, they're just really
poorly organized websites,

so if I -- what I did was
I tried a few search terms

and landed by accident on a
"This page doesn't exist" page.

And it gave me
a complete archive

of the structure of the website,

plus the search function
that was for members only,

and from there,
you could basically map out

their entire operation
from 2015 onwards.

The D. James Kennedy Center
for Christian Leadership

is training the next generation
of leaders to stand for Christ.

And for the many Christians
that I bump into that say,

you know, "God's written off
Washington, D.C.,"

I just laugh and say,
"You ought to come

and see what God's doing
on this hill."

It's one thing to be a Christian

and feel that calling of God,

but how much better if
they're really equipped

so that when they get --
get there,

people put their faith in them
voting for them,

when they get to office,

they really know
how to make a difference.

They've concentrated
on winning state houses,

something that has been
neglected by the Democrats,

and through
coordinated rewriting of laws

through states
that pass restrictive laws,

and if they achieve a certain
percentage of the state houses

with Republican governments
that support their agenda,

they can call
a constitutional convention.

There, they could do
a large-scale transformation

of the US government principles.

What's a
constitutional convention?

Oh, it's where the states
get together

and decide whether and how
to rewrite the US Constitution.

It hasn't happened
for a long time.

There's two ways to rewrite
the US Constitution --

the hard way and the easy way.

The hard way is that
you go state by state,

amendment by amendment,

and nobody gets anywhere
that way,

especially if you want to
reengineer the entire document.

The easy way,
or at least the way they see it,

is that you call
a constitutional convention.

Now, to do that, you have to get
2/3 of state legislatures

to call a constitutional
convention around a --

at least a single issue,

but once the convention
has been called,

then you can introduce whatever
other issues you want to.

So you have the opportunity
to rewrite the whole thing.

You can handle
marriage equality.

You can handle issues
of women's rights,

abortion, federal regulation,
term limits.

Hi, CNP friends.
Father Frank Pavone here,

national director
of Priests for Life.

Thank you for all your support

and collaboration of us --
with us

at Priests for Life
for ending abortion.

I have here my MAGA hat,

which I'm sure
that many of you have,

and I wear it proudly.
Many people say,

"Oh, I've never seen a priest
wearing that MAGA hat,"

but we're gonna go forward
with confidence into 2020

and reelect the most pro-life
president we've ever had.

I would like to recognize
some of our new members

that have joined the Board of
Governors and the Gold Circle,

um, and if you're here --
and I think everyone is here --

if you please stand, we'd just
simply like to recognize you

and welcome you.

JP De Gance and his wife,
Christina De Gance.

De Gance was a member.

Of course he was a member.

Here's what ties
everything together,

but really, De Gance is just one
small cog in this big machine

and this big power movement

that brings all these
companies together.

Well, thank you.
My name is JP De Gance.

I'm the founder
and president of Communio.

The initial pitch to donors
from John Paul De Gance

in the
Culture of Freedom Initiative

to the Philanthropy Roundtable
Summit,

he ran a webinar
for those donors

where he outlined the project.

Communio is an organization --
if I put my slides up --

serves churches
to strengthen marriages

and families
at a citywide scale.

Allpress: And it spells out
the political context

within which
this has been driven.

It had breakdowns
of the presidential elections

over a series of cycles
every four years,

running through to the 2030s.

They were looking at
state by state, uh,

what the differences in voting
patterns were based on marriage,

church attendance,
and religious affiliation,

which denomination
you belong to.

I get that
that's very good for the church

to follow its principles
of outreach

into the community
to help people.

What I'm not understanding
is what's the relationship

with the Republicans.

In the initial
pitch to donors

for the -- for the
microtargeting platform,

they identified
this demographic problem,

that there was
a very strong correlation

between non-church attendance

and people who don't vote
for Republicans.

Effectively, what they're saying
is we can engineer

a shift in the population
to get that extra percentage

we need of voters

who can tip the balance
within a particular electorate.

My name is JP De Gance.

I'm the Executive Vice President
of the Philanthropy Roundtable.

I know many of you
on today's call

are joining us
for the first time

and aren't as familiar
with this project,

its goals, and what
it's accomplished to date,

so by way of some background,

the
Culture of Freedom Initiative

is a donor-led effort led by
a task force of business leaders

and of differing faiths
from around the country.

We're going --
We'll go right over

into the intro of -- of --
of Will Held,

who's our
Chief Operating Officer

of the
Culture of Freedom Initiative.

Will and I actually met
some years ago

when we both worked
for these, uh, brothers

out of Wichita, Kansas,
the Koch brothers,

and we were both --

we jokingly call ourselves
recovering political hacks.

So I'm going to skip over here
to the audience builder.

Right now, it defaults
to the entire United States,

so there's 206 million folks
in the database.

You can add the family dynamic
of "propensity for divorce."

You can model
a number of different behaviors

or tendencies towards behavior,
including opioid dependance,

um, different
mental-health disorders.

He modeled praying,
he modeled fasting,

He modeled mourning,
and he modeled weeping,

but he also ended up doing
something based upon the data.

They're targeting

extraordinarily vulnerable
individuals --

Young, struggling couples,

millennials who aren't gonna
be able to afford a house

or they may be trying to
make payments on a mortgage,

or they're struggling with all
the costs of medical insurance.

They struggling with
a member of the family

who may be having
a dependency problem.

So I go
into my church.

Yep.I fill out a survey.

Yep.

I trust the institution
I think is trying to help me.

I'm revealing myself emotionally
through this survey,

and then that information,
I believe,

is being anonymized
for my church.

Yeah.

But then that information
ends up going where?

It goes into the database

for the Insights
microtargeting platform.

Also around the church

but who look like
they're credit-card-dependent

in order to pay their bills,

and they can basically
run marketing to this

custom-created audience through
a number of different platforms,

including the major
social-media platforms

of Facebook and Twitter.

This was a way of shifting
the demographic balance

in key swing states in order to
build up a bigger pool

of potential
Republican presidential voters.

Looks like we're
going to be coming to Denver,

Fort Worth, and Austin.

We're beginning to work
with funders in those cities,

so if you're interested in
learning more, just come see me.

Thank you.

Do people
in churches know

that their
personal information

is being gathered

to use
in political campaigns

for the Republicans
on the right?

No.

The churches that were
actually, you know,

doing a good job
in the past,

those churches
don't necessarily realize

that effectively,
those church leaders

in some of the smaller churches
are also being exploited.

If you have
a defense grade system,

a weapon system
of influence,

what it is
looking for

is the weaknesses
in people.

That influence is only really
necessary on the battlefield

to either break
the will of the enemy

or to bring together
the will of the -- of the people

who are uncommitted

that you want
to make committed to your cause.

Every preacher
we've talked to,

every pastor
we've talked to,

I'm not even sure
that they have a-an inkling

of what's
going on here

in terms of what's happening
with the data

and the way
it's been obtained.

What do you think
the congregation would say

if they realized
that potentially,

a defense-grade system

of recognition
of their neurosis

to radicalize them
in a certain way

that is befitting of
a political party --

that is something like
that of George Orwell.

Where's the regulation?
Where's the rules?

And what the strategists
have done in this movement

is say, "Alright,
we don't have to win

the general election.

That's not the way
our system works."

You win the Electoral College.
How do you do that?

You go after
the swing states,

18 million people scattered
across 4 to 6 states.

We know
where they are.

So which ones
are in churches?

Now we download the church
directories with the support

of the pastors
enlisted in this movement --

between 70,000 and 80,000
in the United States.

We will then compare
the -- the directories

with who's registered.

Then we will decide

which of these voters
we want to activate.

We want
to discourage the others

from the same congregation,
right?

But on the face of it,
what the parishioners see is,

"You're an American.
Go vote.

We're gonna give you
a voter guide

that strongly suggests
how to vote."

Whoever was
financing Brexit

or whoever was
financing Trump,

they certainly want their pound
of flesh at the end of it.

People don't put millions,

tens of millions
into a campaign

unless they think they're
going to get a return
on their investment.

I can say that
for sure.

The ultimate position
to be in

in a state of war
is when your adversary

has no idea
that they're in a war.

The stakes
are that high,

and in fact,
these systems of civil society

that we've worked
so very, very hard to build,

they can crumble
and disappear.

We continue to offer up
our children

as living sacrifices to the
Moloch of government schools.

A lot of effort's been wasted
on school reform.

Government schools
are no more reformable

than Soviet collective farms.

This movement is attacking
a lot of the institutions

that taxpayers have formed
to care for people,

like the Affordable Care Act,
like public education,

and then
when they are defunded

and start to wobble,

they say,
"See, they're failing.

Come see
our parallel universe,

see our
fundamentalist schools,

see our so-called

Christian collective
health-care entities."

So they're trying
to set up institutions

that address
all of these needs

and make people
dependent on --

on their
entire superstructure.

I feel that Americans

have gotten lazy
about democracy.

People say, "Oh,
why don't theydo something?"

And I say,
"Who do you think 'they' is?"

Today on Family Talk...

Jesus is Lord
not just over the church.

He's Lord over government
and over the universe.

We need to start
acting like that.

I have a map of the second floor

of the Ritz-Carlton
in New Orleans.

This shows where
all the different sessions

of the
Council for National Policy

are going to be happening.

There's a big Catholic mass.

There's a board meeting
4:30 to 5:30,

and we have booked
this Vermilion Room.

My secret recorders are these.

It's your cross,
and it's an HD camera.

It's got a little camera in it.

You know, I'm gonna vote
for people that's more in line

with what
the Bible said.

Man #2: The founders
put in the impeachment clause

just so
if someone came in

and they were the worst villain
you ever saw in your life,

you had a way to be able
to write about it.

Well,
they impeached Clinton.Yeah.

And really,
nothing changed.

I didn't agree with the way
he was living his life,

but does that make him
not fit to be the president?

It's a mistake
back then.

It's an
even bigger mistake.

You know what I thought?
Man named Jesus.

In the end,
we're all sinners.

Hello.
- Hey, baby.
I miss you.

Just calling you to tell you
I'm in New Orleans.

I am just, uh, driving down
Canal Street.

There's a big police thing going
on across the street from me.

Trying to get
to my hotel.

I am so sorry
I'm not with you.

I am sorry
you're not with me, too.

I wasn't scared at first.

I thought I was on
a bit of an adventure.

You know, it's like, "Okay,

I'm going to get my microphones,
record undercover

at the
Council for National Policy

and, you know, be the first
person who's ever done it."

And it would be really exciting,

and I-I wasn't scared
about it at all.

But then I get there,
and they say, "Well, you know,

there's gonna be
no ins or outs to the hotel."

And I'm like,

"This is -- This is
the Ritz-Carlton, Canal Street.

What do you mean
no ins or outs to the hotel?

Who shuts down Canal Street?"

The plan had been
that I had booked

one of the rooms for lunch,
but then they canceled that.

They told us
there were going to be

no in or outs between 10:00 a.m.
and 2:00 p.m.,

and I thought, "Fuck it,
I'll book breakfast

and just stay for a long time."

I'm in the hotel.

I can't even get out
of the hotel if I want to,

so I'm gonna wander around
and shoot what I can.

...and blessing we received,

and we now look forward
to another six hours

in which we will receive that
which you would have us to know

to be
more effective missionaries

and -- and soldiers for you.
Amen.

And we're going to do
during this luncheon time

is to provide expertise
in how you can judge

the best place
to give your assets.

Talk to me
about what you saw.

You know, I saw a lot of stuff.

I saw a lot of business
being done.

That's one of the things
that I came away from with this.

Like, man, there's a lot of
money floating around,

a lot of arrogance,
a lot of power.

Many of you, and we, too,
on executive committee,

have expressed a need to --
for the conservative movement

to be as organized,
especially as we approach 2020.

Today, we are offering you
an entrepreneurial look

at how you might become
an activist on your own.

So the election taught us
it's broken up,

and the churches
aren't networking.

Could we apply what we know
about media to that

and float the idea

to a policy organization
in California, which we've done?

And we will fund
a division in there,

and they'll do nothing but try
and network the churches.

So this is super quick, right?

We can do that fast.

Going up or down?

Going up, yeah.

Are we funding the past

or are we funding the future?

Talked with JP De Gance,
who has Communio,

who's -- who's working
on saving marriages

and lowering divorce rates
in key cities

with a very innovative
almost franchise concept

where they take something,
what works in one city

and replicates it in the other,
and it's pretty exciting.

Connelly: There are about 36
electoral votes

to play with in the election.

Donald Trump won Michigan
by 12,000 votes

at 16 electoral votes.

Pennsylvania's 20,
and Wisconsin's 10.

The line in the middle, you see,
is the line you cannot cross.

My attorneys at both the state
and the federal level

spent an enormous amount
of time.

Think about it.

We've identified key voters.
We know they want to go our way.

It's like what I do
with pastors now with my C3.

We can't give that
to the campaign

when they need it the most.

So, we've got to figure out
how to do that.

Some groups have to
disclose the donors.

Others don't.
What's dark money?

This is the big phrase.

But it's political spending
that's meant to influence voters

where money is not disclosed,
and sources are not known.

C4 organizations --
political nonprofits.

That means they've got a purpose
to what they're doing.

They can't do
political purpose things.

They can't spend more than,
like, 49.9%.

But they can spend
that IE money

specifically for an organization
or candidate.

And they can engage
in those political activities

as long as
they are defined

not to be the primary purpose
of the organization.

Then, I finally made
my way to the Vermillion Room.

And then, I get there,
and there's all these

Secret Service types.

Thank you.

And I thought,
"Hey, who's here?"

What's this about?

So, we need to get people
in our churches,

our organizations,

every group you have
a sphere of influence with,

to do voter registration,

and make sure
they're part of that.

We know that helps.

Because once voter registration
has been done,

those names go into
the state election records.

Then, that's accessible for
the campaign, the candidate.

They know who
those people are.

If you're not doing
anything else,

make sure you're
helping to sponsor and run

voter-registration drives
everywhere you possibly can.

Keep this in mind
as I wrap up.

36 electoral votes
to play with.

Got to think about this
for 2020.

I saw a group of tourists
getting ready to go

and I thought, "If I can
just slide up behind them,

and be a part of
what they're doing,

then I can slip out with them,
if they manage to get out."

Past security.

Past the Secret Service.

And then, I was scared.
Yeah.

It's like, "Am I gonna end up
with a Taser in my back,

or thrown in jail
in Louisiana?"

Nobody wants to be thrown
in jail in Louisiana.

And then, past the friendly cop
waiting outside.

How did you feel
when you realized

the vice president
was going to come?

Oh, like I need to get the hell
out of there as fast as I could.

You know, like,
"Get the hell out right now."

But in this very close race
that took place,

that allowed America
to change course

it was made possible.

because of our speaker
this morning,

the 48th vice president
of the United States,

ladies and gentlemen,
Mike Pence.

Hello, CNP.

You are a sight
for sore eyes.

I bring greetings
from President Donald Trump.

Isn't he something?

I'll tell you.

You know,
some people think he and I

are a little bit different.

And I'll tell you what,
he and I have become
very close friends.

Thank you for
your enduring support,

and frankly, the leadership
in the council

that the Council
for National Policy

advises and gives this
administration every single day.

Thanks for standing strong
with this president

and this administration.

A young person asked me
just the other day,

they said, "How do you deal with
the socialist agenda?"

And I said,
"We talk about freedom."

We tell freedom's story
to this rising generation.

'Cause it's not gonna
be enough for us

just to win
the next election.

We've got to win
the next generation for freedom.

So CNP, in the face
of their radical agenda

and destructive politics,

now more than ever,
we've got to educate.

We've got to communicate.
And we've got to mobilize.

We've got to run
so as to win.

And every day between now
and Election Day --

and if you're inclined to bow
the head and bend the knee,

Over the next year
and a month

would be a good time
to do it.

What was your impression
of this movement

after having seen it
on the inside?

I come from a conservative
family of churchgoers,

but they're not trying
to take people's rights away.

They're just conservatives.

These people,
they're not conservatives.

They're radicals.

Is the fear greater than
the virus itself?

Man #2: President Trump
and his administration,

they've acted decisively,

they've acted responsibly,
to respond to this virus.

And they got ahead of it
very early.

Man #3: It does appear
that the administration

is taking all of
the right steps.

The president,
in my view...

Staver: I am encouraging
churches all over the country

to participate
in Reopen Church Sunday,

the first Sunday in May --
Reopen Church Sunday.

You can go to
reopenchurch.org.

Donald Trump rose to power with
the assistance of a movement

that denies science,
bashes government,

and has prioritized loyalty
over professional expertise.

I want to go first to my --
straight to my first guest,

the 48th vice president
of the United States,

Vice President Mike Pence.

Tony Perkins, it is good to be
with you on "Washington Watch."

That has obviously contributed
to our inability

to address this crisis
in an evidence-based fashion.

Misinformation is rife
in those hyper-conservative

and hyper-partizan
religious communities

that were all in
for Trump.

Now, the projections are that
we're going to see less than

100,000 fatalities as a result
of this -- the virus.

That's significantly lower
than some projections.

Is this the result of the,
as you said, people heeding

the guidance of the CDC,
and quite frankly,

the prayers
that have been lifted up?

Progress that we're beginning
to see is -- we really believe

is evidence that the American
people understand

that their future
is in their hands.

Ordinarily,
the kinds of consequences

of this type of behavior

don't really show up
for some time.

In the case of a pandemic
that's killing people,

the consequences
are too obvious to ignore.

Churches have worked,
I think,

very well
with the administration.

Mr. Vice President, I do
appreciate you joining us today.

And I would encourage you --

I know the Justice Department
is on this,

but as evidence emerges
that there may have been some

that went too far

in singling out
religious institutions,

that's something that's
addressed in the days ahead.

Because while we're all
in this together,

these fundamental freedoms
must be defended

and protected here at home,
because it does

have implications
for what we do abroad, as well.

Narrator: In times of crisis,
people and communities

often turn to the church
for guidance and support.

In these times,

how can churches rise up,
and find new ways

to be a light
in their community?

Considering the present climate
and concerns around coronavirus,

you can register
your church

in the Community
Services Directory.

You'll also have access to
four customizable surveys

that you can use to get a pulse
on how your people are doing.

Learn more,
and sign up for free today.

The moral that you should
probably look for --

it depends on how long
you've got,

and how much time you've got,
until the rest of it,

which is the
Russian connection.

Is the camera rolling
at the moment,
in terms of what --

I'll do it when the camera's off
on this one, actually.

'Cause that's -- that's one
that'll get you killed.