James O’Keefe

Few conservative young people have had as big of an influence on the American political landscape in recent years as James O’Keefe.

O’Keefe’s 2009 videos where he posed as a “pimp” in conjunction with Hannah Giles and Andrew Breitbart at Acorn offices, ultimately led to the organization’s demise on the national level.

His subsequent videos have had similar results, including his exposure of liberal arrogance at NPR in 2011 and voter fraud in New Hampshire, North Carolina and Washington, D.C. during the 2012 primaries.

O’Keefe, 28, graduated from Rutgers University in New Jersey in 2006 and majored in philosophy and is currently the President of Project Veritas, an organization he founded aimed at exposing “corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions in order to achieve a more ethical and transparent society.”

Saul Alinsky’s book Rules for Radicals had a profound impact on O’Keefe’s life because he said Alinsky speaks the truth about human nature.

“We need to expose new information. We need to expose the world for what it is,” O’Keefe said.

Of the mainsteam media outlets, O’Keefe particularly dislikes ABC News, saying that many people at ABC are married to government officials.

“You can’t investigate the people you cocktail with,” O’Keefe said. “There is an unwillingness to go against grain and report the truth.”

He says that’s biggest problem facing young Americans is an unwillingness to do the right thing “because they are afraid and unwilling to change the world.”