Factually! with Adam Conover - The Downfall of the NRA with Tim Mak

Episode Date: January 5, 2022

The NRA has been unbelievably successful in achieving its goals. Now, it's falling apart. How is that possible? On the show today is National Public Radio's Washington Investigative Correspondent and author Tim Mak. You can check out his book, Misfire, at factuallypod.com/books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Thank you so much for tuning into the show again. I hope you're having a wonderful new year and I hope you have a great 2022. At the very least, I hope you have a better 2022 than you did a 2021. I know that I will be hoping for the same thing. I've got some big things planned. My new Netflix show, The G Word, is on the way. And I've got some big podcast news that I want to tell you about very soon, just as soon as I get all my ducks in a row. But for now, let's just enjoy a brand new episode of Factually together, the first one of the new year as we kick it off in style. We're going to start this year by talking about the National Rifle Association. Now, when I say that name, National Rifle Association, I'm sure a lot of associations

come to your mind. Like the NRA is one of those topics where no matter what I could possibly say about them, you probably already have an opinion. But it's precisely because we have such strong opinions that we often have trouble seeing what this organization actually is. So much of the time, we tend to fundamentally misunderstand what the organization actually is. So much of the time, we tend to fundamentally misunderstand what the organization actually is. For instance, a lot of gun control advocates, liberals,

often blame the fact that we haven't made progress on gun control on NRA money. The NRA is buying off all of these politicians. When in reality, the NRA's money, even though it does have quite a bit, is only a small part of the story. The NRA's real power is that it isn't just another lobbying organization. It's a mass membership organization that counts millions and millions and millions of Americans among its members. And it provides services to them, just firearm training and

all kinds of other important things. But even more importantly, when the NRA wants to get something done, it's able to politically and socially organize those members to turn out in support of issues that they genuinely care about. Politicians don't live in fear of the NRA donating or not donating. They live in fear of the NRA mobilizing its members to send letters, make phone calls, and even show up at their office if they make a vote the NRA and those members disagree with. In other words, far from being another money-driven lobbying group, the NRA is actually one of the most effective single-issue mass organization campaigns in American political

history. And if you're an advocate for more gun control, that's something that you should probably pay attention to because it's going to take at least that level of organization, if not greater, to undo what the NRA has done. And let's be honest, the NRA has been astoundingly successful. Gun control legislation has fallen in state after state. And for most Americans, there's actually very little separating you from buying a firearm. The Supreme Court finally even ruled that that is what the Second Amendment means, that you have a constitutional right to that firearm.

In other words, the NRA has achieved an almost total victory on their chosen issue. I mean, they did it. You got to hand it to them. They got to be popping champagne bottles over there every damn day, right? Well, hold on a second, because if that's the case, if they have achieved such a historic victory over the past few decades, why are things going so poorly at the NRA? Why are they filing for bankruptcy? Why are they being taken to court by the New York Attorney General? Why does it seem like the entire organization is on the verge of collapsing? Well, to answer those questions and

many, many more, we have on the show today, Tim Mack. He's an incredible journalist. He is NPR's Washington investigative correspondent, and he is the author of the new book, Misfire, Inside the Downfall of the NRA. I cannot wait for you to hear this interview. I think you're going to find it fascinating. So without further ado, let's get to my conversation with Tim Mapp. Tim, thank you so much for being here. Of course, anytime. Thanks for having me, Adam. So you have a new book out about the NRA. The NRA is an organization that really looms large in American politics. I think a lot of people sort of think they understand it, but there's a lot more to it than I feel like we

normally appreciate. How do you describe the power of the NRA in American life over the last many decades? I think you can't have a conversation about gun politics without understanding the National Rifle Association and its effects, both culturally and politically, right? That a lot of the current basis for this cultural signifier, this gun ownership, the coolness of accessories or kitting out your firearm, a lot of that's been pushed by the NRA. And then you have the laws, both at the state level and the federal level, that's been heavily influenced by the NRA over the last few decades. In the mid-80s, just a handful of states allowed concealed carry, for example. Now all 50 states allow concealed carry. And you can't have that conversation without understanding the power of the NRA.

Yeah, I mean, they have really achieved in many ways, it seems like an overpowering, durable victory, both legally and culturally. That like the power of, you know, the idea, the NRA's version of what the second amendment means. And, and, you know, they've really injected it into the minds of like the majority of Americans, it seems like, and the legal system to a degree that's like often unappreciated. Like, I don't know. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I think so. You know, one, one thing that I've been reporting on recently are these tapes, these secret tapes that I obtained of NRI meetings, like top officials, executives, lobbyists gathering on the day after Columbine.

And this is like right after the shootings in 1999. And they're scrambling onto this conference call. And they're trying to figure out, what are we going to do? By chance, the NRA had scheduled a annual convention in Denver just days after that shooting. And it's a real crisis for them to try to figure out what to do next. And what's remarkable is that you hear them on these tapes talking in real time about what they should do to respond to this terrible mass shooting. And you hear them coalesce onto their playbook that they're going to use for decades and decades to come in order to shift blame off of guns, shift blame off themselves onto other issues, societal problems, video games, movies, or the media is to blame, so on and so forth. And what I kind of realized as I was reporting this out is that if you look at it, for all

the mass shootings that have happened, what's remarkable is that Columbine was kind of the start of this very sad era in which mass shootings at schools become, sadly, much more common. But the NRA's messaging has remained the same from Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook to Parkland all the way to present. No. Arguably, it's easier to get a gun, at least if you look at federal law, it's easier to get a gun today than it was right after Columbine. Despite all the intervening shootings and all the horror and all the efforts and the politics and the advocacy. Michael Moore made a whole movie blaming the NRA for Columbine, basically. It was like a it was a hit movie. Columbine, basically. It was like a, it was a hit movie. Like it was, it's been a part of our national dialogue that, hey, aren't guns responsible for these shootings? At least that's many Americans have advocated that position. And yeah, that, that position has

lost and the position that's won has been the NRA. Let me ask, by the way, do you know why were they taping in the 90s a conversation on the phone? Like, I could understand if it was today and it's like, hey, it's just Zoom and someone hit the record button. But like, why would this conversation be taped? A participant just decided to do it. Someone who was on the call secretly recorded those conversations. And so there are like two and a half hours of this tape. It's really remarkable just hearing them kind of, they consider, for example, a million dollar victims fund after Columbine. Or even saying, even apologizing, taking this softer tone.

And then they kind of land on this idea, which they've basically held ever since. which they've basically held ever since, which is if we apologize, if we scale back, if we cancel our convention, it'll be like we're accepting responsibility and we can't be seen to do that. And that's been something that they were on the back foot that they perhaps did feel somewhat responsible or they felt that others would say they were responsible and should we accept any of that and they decided not to they decided to pull away from it but there was a moment at which exactly wondered maybe are we responsible did that is does that come out on the tapes any sort of hint of that i don't think that they considered for a moment that they might be responsible, but I think the latter part of what you're saying, right, that they knew that other people would consider them to be responsible. And it's their strategy for how to dodge that responsibility. Yeah.

Well, I mean, just talk a little bit about, you know, how the NRA came to that position. You know, I know that, you know, the NRA when it started out was much more of just like a club, like for people who liked rifles, I guess. And it sort of transformed that there was this revolution. What's it called? There's a particular moment that there was like, is it the revolt in Cincinnati, something like that? It is the revolt in Cincinnati. Ha ha, I got it. We did this topic on Adam Ruins Everything

a couple of years ago and I'm like fishing around in my brain cells. One out of every, one out of the 65 episodes we did of that show. But yeah, so that it became much more politically radicalized. But, you know, how did it build this incredibly powerful base of support? Well, you know, the NRA is originally founded in New York.

That point is going to be important later. It was originally founded in New York after the Civil War Because there was this debate at the time about whether individual soldiers should be taught marksmanship. Like at the time, there were leading military officials and officers and strategists were into line infantry, right? Hey, everyone point in that direction and fire that way. And there was some concern among a lot of these strategists that teaching individual soldiers how to fire their firearms and accurately would lead to some untoward individualism on behalf of those troops, right? And so, the NRA was formed in contravention of that to oppose that, to teach individual people how to aim and fire their rifles.

And for many years was considered a gun safety and shooting sports organization. Yeah. Most of the 20th century. Until, as you mentioned, in the late 70s, there's this revolt in Cincinnati where, you know, the NRA is kind of a grassroots organization. And so members can kick out its leadership or change the policy of the group. At the time, the NRA was considering moving to Colorado and kind of focusing on the gun safety and shooting sports elements of the organization. but there was a revolt on the floor in the late 70s, and that kind of pivoted the NRA towards a much more politically aggressive organization

in the direction that we know it today. And so what are the things that the NRA does as an organization that has won it these victories, right? I mean, obviously, it does gun safety, right? It does gun training. Those are sort of the things you'd expect it to do. But, you know, I mean, the way that people who are involved in this way of thinking, you know, feel about the NRA and feel about gun rights, it starts to feel almost like religious. It like becomes like a real true article of belief for people in a way. And how did it build that? Because that does seem new over the past few decades versus the way people thought about guns in the 50s or 70s.

Yeah. I mean, I think that the NRA definitely, a lot of people describe it as a kind of secular religion. It's definitely at least a cultural like like, marking that you're an NRA member. And the NRA has done a very good job over the last few decades trying to make membership in the NRA synonymous with being a gun owner, synonymous with being not just a gun owner, but like a cool gun owner, you know? And all the cachet that comes involved with – that is involved with the newest firearms, the coolest accessories, whatever. And building this kind of cultural issue around gun ownership. There are a lot of different kind of turning points along the way. But, you know, particularly after Sandy Hook, after the shootings at Sandy Hook, the

NRA kind of made itself into a culture war organization. It was no longer just interested in the firearms issue and the Second Amendment. It wanted to be that organization that stood between the government and its members on all sorts of issues unrelated to guns. And it became kind of, it doubled down on becoming an organization that exclusively reached out to conservatives and Republicans. And I mean, why, why is that? Like, why go in that direction? Why join the culture war? Why would an organization that's, you know, so focused on guns pivot in that direction so hard? Well, you know, previous to Sandy Hook, right, you know, one of the most

important strategic allies for the NRA were these moderate Democrats who supported them on this issue. There used to be quite a few. Now there are maybe a handful, less than a handful at the federal level. You know, the reason why this all happened, Sandy Hook led to the failure of this gun legislation called Manchin-Toomey, which sought to expand background checks in the United States. The NRA took part in those negotiations and then pulled out at the last minute, dooming it to failure. Wow. and then pulled out at the last minute, dooming it to failure. And after that happened, basically it was very difficult for Democrats to work with the NRA and vice versa. There's also all these incentives pulling on the NRA. A big theme of Misfire, my book, is the factionalism inside the NRA. So we take you behind the scenes,

into the boardrooms, into the meeting rooms. And one of the big points of tension throughout the book is between the lobbyists on Capitol Hill and the people in charge of fundraising and membership. And during the Obama era, the people in charge of membership and fundraising basically won out. There are deep incentives to more incendiary messaging that lead to more money raised and more people joining your organization. And this is a kind of sharp turn that the NRA makes after Sandy Hook and the failure of Manchin Toomey. It's just wild. I mean, look, I understand that, you know, the NRA is providing a service, right? In terms of, you know, if you're a gun owner, it genuinely provides like a triple A kind of style service, right? I also understand it as a marker of cultural identity. I mean, you're an NPR reporter. So many people, you know, are NPR members because members because hey i'm a good liberal i'll join np you know it's

uh 50 bucks a year or whatever you know but it's so unusual for an organization like that to then uh wade into political life so hard and also to be like so massively successful at it that's what i that's what i keep having trouble wrapping my head around is, I mean, you've seen in the last couple of years, or at least I've seen even, you know, people on the left almost abandoned the issue of gun control and say, ah, you know what? I'll buy a gun too. Why not? Like I've started to see more, you know, armed leftist groups and things like that.

And it seems to be almost like I can't beat them, join them kind of thing. You know, like it kills a certain number of people every year, but hey, we still got climate change to worry about. So why don't we like forget about guns for a little bit? Because it's just, we have lost so thoroughly on it. You know, when you talk to lawmakers and you're like, hey, why are you, like, what is it about the NRA that makes you, I guess, for lack of a better word, afraid?

Like, what scares you about them? What motivates you to act in alignment with what the NRA wants? And, you know, they'll tell you it's not about money, although the NRA has hundreds of millions of dollars. Money only really goes so far. It's that the NRA has millions of members that the NRA is able to mobilize really, really effectively. That when the NRA asks its membership to do something, they show up. And lawmakers are worried about their phone lines getting jammed up. They're worried about their emails being – their email inboxes getting totally flooded.

They're worried about getting yelled at at town halls and confronted in their districts. And the NRA can pull that off. I don't know that there are that many other organizations in America that can pull off at scale that sort of political mobilization. of political mobilization. Like the AARP is pretty powerful, but if you cross the AARP, you don't get like a hundred old people show up at your next town hall meeting or outside your congressional office

banging on the windows. Like the NRA is like able to, it's seriously organized and able to mobilize people in a really strong, I mean, that's what you're describing. This sounds like something that labor unions used to do, for instance. And it really strikes me that what you said about it

becoming a culture war organization is seems so true to me because like it doesn't seem like an organization that is as focused strictly on a strict interpretation of gun rights as I would expect. The best example of this is like the killing of Philando Castile, which when you look at, and we did a segment of Adam Ruins Everything about this case, but when you look at the details of that case, this is a person who was killed because he said, he said, officer, I want to let you know, I do have a firearm in the car. He kept his hands on the wheel. He didn't touch anything. That's what you should do if you have a firearm in the car.

And a police officer took out his gun and shot him as he had his hands on the wheel. You would think that the NRA would say, hold on a second. This is someone who was killed because they lawfully were carrying a firearm in their car. But they did not make such a statement, to my knowledge at the time. Why do you think that is? You know, this is something that even some of the NRA's most ardent supporters question its own organization about. And I haven't gotten good answers about it.

And I haven't gotten good answers about it. You know, it's one of those gaping holes that you the answer, if you were to guess, would be this culture, this culture war thing, that they've built certain coalitions and those coalitions have certain implicit demands. Yeah. That because Philando Castile is a black man and they're allied with, or they're allied with people who, you know, can't abide police shootings of black men as an issue of concern that want to portray that as a fake issue that are engaged in a culture war around that issue. They therefore can't speak out about it. Is that basically what you mean? Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. But it also makes the entire organization appear that at root, it's also like a white identity

organization. Do you feel that's the case? I mean, I know that there are non-white NRA members. Of course there are. But that is the appearance given by, you know, remaining silent on that issue. Well, this is the difference between their rhetoric and action, right? Because their rhetoric in a lot of their messaging, they'll say, we don't care what race you are. We don't care if you're white or black or whatever else. But the actual actions on the Castile case, and or the lack of action on the Castile case really does raise those questions about why the NRA hasn't done more. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't know. My view, the questions are kind of also answered by their lack of saying, you know, making a statement about it. lack of saying, you know, making a statement about it. But let's move, though, to talk about,

you know, again, this is an organization that has had such success, and yet at its moment of greatest victory, with Donald Trump as president as well, it seems like everything is starting to fall apart, that the organization is in deep trouble. me about that and that is the title of your book is misfire so i imagine you know something about this yeah you can't talk about the financial and legal trouble that the nra is in without first starting with this guy named wayne lapierre okay i've heard of this guy wayne lapierre he's the head of the nra has been so since 1991. So decades, 30 years. And, you know, the book starts with this scene at Wayne LaPierre's wedding. He doesn't want to get married. And he's been telling people all week that he doesn't think he should get married. And so he's outside the- Wait, is your book a rom-com?

My book is like. Runaway Bride starring Wayne LaPierre. So he's outside with his best man. And the best man's like, I don't think you should get married either. And the best man slaps a hundred dollar bill on the dashboard of the Jeep that they're in in and says, hey, we can just drive out of here right now. But, you know, against his better instincts, Wayne goes into the church and gets basically harangued into the wedding by his bride and the priest

and then just follows this terribly awkward, weird ceremony where Wayne LaPierre can't make eye contact with his bride at any point. He's surrounded by NRA luminaries in the audience, right? Oh, my God. But they ultimately do get married. And there's a reason I tell that story, right? That like the deeper you get into this organization, the more you realize that Wayne LaPierre has been berated and bullied into all the major decisions of the NRA over the last 30 years. Really? You know, like he's got this public image of this like staunch, like Second Amendment bulldog. But if you talk to his close friends and people have known him for a really long time,

they describe him as this deeply anxious, fearful, self-pitying, almost cowardly figure. Wow. Who doesn't, by the way, he's not good at shooting firearms. Really? You know, there's this story about how he was at a video shoot holding a firearm. Someone called out to him and he swivels around and points the gun at the person who called out to him. swivels around and points the gun at the person who would call that to him. And then there came a joke at NRA headquarters that, you know,

if you didn't do well on, you know, your quarterly review or whatever, that your punishment might have to be to go, quote, shooting with Wayne. You know? But, like, Wayne LaPierre is someone who, when there's a mass shooting in America, he doesn't get down to business and try to deal with the issues that certainly his organization needs to deal with. He just gets filled with this anxiety and self-pity, like, what is this going to mean for me? It's going to be so terrible for me. After one mass shooting, a bunch of NRA officials were going to meet together in a boardroom and they find him hiding behind the curtain with his just like the tips of his shoes showing because he like it was

like the only way that he could find to like reassure us like to soothe his anxiety he's like hiding behind the curtain he was so overwhelmed by the moment and he's just like oh hey guys yeah i just i'll feel better back here he was just like silently by the moment. And he was just like, oh, hey guys, yeah, I'll feel better back here. He was just like silently hiding behind the curtain. He's been the head of the NRA for some 30 years, but

almost even since the beginning of it, he's been telling his close friends, man, I really don't want to be doing this. What I really want to be doing is I want to sell ice cream in Maine. I want to own an ice cream shop. He wants to sell ice cream in Maine? And I want to sell ice cream in Maine.

Yeah, this has been as long. But, like, you're seeing a pattern develop here, right? Like, he's doing all sorts of things that he doesn't want to do. And then there are these powerful people around him from his wife, Susan, who no one's really written about before, but who's like this hidden hand in the NRA, who's immensely powerful. This is the woman he married who he didn't want to marry. Correct.

Who he's still married to today. Wow. Who is, who, Susan LaPierre is this person who heads up this like elite world of million dollar plus donors that are women to the NRA. And there's a lot of color in the book about what that world is like, the demands for loyalty, the lavish meals, the insider gossip, the high fashion that's demanded of women in those circles. It's a really bizarre world, Tanner. women in those circles. It's a really bizarre world, Tanner.

Wow. Well, so, but if Wayne hates doing this and also is bad with guns, right? So, it doesn't seem like he loves guns that much. Why is he doing it? Why has he been doing it for 30 years? It's just, I think it's one of those things where he's repeatedly failed backwards or failed upwards. He had to be convinced to take the job of the head of the – you'd imagine the average ambitious person, if they're working in an organization like this, would seek the top gig when it's up. And he really didn't want it. He was like, this is not my thing and i i think the answer to it is is is that for powerful people around the nra they really found it super beneficial to them to have them in this position like an easily bullied person in this position right because i mean we're talking about tens of millions of dollars at stake here, right?

So one of the, I mentioned Susan LaPierre, who found it to be in her interest to have her husband be the head of the NRA because, you know, she gets all sorts of ridiculous perks, like thousands of dollars for hairdressers and stylists. for hairdressers and stylists. Like her preferred hairdresser is Taylor Swift's hairdresser. And so she flies her in, flies her in,

gets her a suite at an extravagant hotel just to do her hair and so on and so forth. I've always thought she looked like Taylor Swift. It's true. Well, so there's like Susan LaPierre is this powerful person around there. Another powerful person like susan lapierre is this powerful person around there another powerful person around wayne lapierre is this guy named angus mcqueen who is like he's like an ad man he's he's the head of this big advertising firm based out of out of oklahoma and he is someone who you know people would just describe him like yelling at Wayne as if, you know, he were the client and Wayne

were like his employee, right? And, you know, his ad firm benefits in the decades in which Wayne LaPierre is the head of the NRA. So the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year. Wow. And so there are many powerful people who surrounded Wayne, who felt that it was in their interest for him to take the heat and him to, you know, do the work and for them to reap the benefits. I was going to say, why don't any of these people just want to take control of

the organization and run at them, run at themselves? I guess they don't have to if they are, if they have Wayne wrapped around their little finger. It's so much that, and I think it is that, you know, why would you do the job if you didn't have to do the job? And you could make a lot more money not doing the job. You know, like, people just learned over time that if you berated Wayne LaPierre long enough, he's going to sign off on tens of millions of dollars in contracts, insider deals, and, you know and golden parachutes for former officials

who have left the organization to get paid extravagantly to do almost nothing at all. Wow. I have to say, like, screw you for making me feel bad for Wayne LaPierre. I didn't expect that in this conversation. But I pity him now that in this conversation. But this is not to say that he bears no responsibility for his actions, right? Sure. During his tenure, and we can kind of bring this to present day, right? Like the NRA is in

serious financial and legal trouble. You know, we started this conversation talking about their wins and their successes, particularly culturally and politically. But right now, from a financial standpoint, from a legal standpoint, they're facing the most serious mortal threat that the organization has ever faced. Wait, let's put a pin in that because we have to take a really quick break, but I want to dig into this right after we get back. We'll be right back with more Tim Mack. Okay, we're back with Tim Mack. You were just saying before the break,

the NRA is now facing the most mortal threat it has ever faced. I think were your words. Tell us about that. Okay, so the NRA right now is facing, this is all about Wayne LaPierre's mismanagement and misconduct over the last few years. Okay. Allegations of impropriety and the NRA's serious troubles have bubbled up to the surface over the last few years. And now he's facing, and the NRA is facing, a revolt from some of its own members, protests from its own board of directors. It's got investigations ongoing.

And most seriously, it's got this investigation by the New York attorney general and a lawsuit, which has accused the NRA, after they did this 18-month investigation, accused the NRA of being so corrupt it shouldn't be able to exist as a nonprofit. Wow. So Letitia James, who's the attorney general of New York, has accused the NRA of tens of millions of dollars in misconduct, and Wayne LaPierre in particular, tens of millions of dollars in misconduct over just three years, and is seeking a court's approval to shut the organization down entirely. And then they have, because of all these allegations of corruption, their membership has declined and their revenue, their fundraising has dramatically declined

to the point where in 2018, the NRA almost couldn't make payroll. It was like shutting off free coffee. Yeah, it was shutting off free coffee for its employees in the office. Like, you know, like that's how serious the situation got. How does this, I want to know more about what the specifics of the corruption allegations are, but how do you score that last part with the fact that, you know, again, this is such a powerful mobilizing organization that is able to, is super organized, able to get people to

turn out. How are they not able to then say, hey, everybody chip in a hundred bucks this year or whatever to, in order to make their fundraising goals. So, so for this, we have to go back to the Obama administration, right? So, so during the Obama administration, after Sandy Hook in particular, the NRA is really riding high. They're getting fat off of just being able to sell this fear to their members that Obama is going to come take your guns. After Sandy Hook, they are riding high. It says something in itself. Like at this point, they've refined this measure so well that they're actually able to benefit from mass shootings in terms of their mobilization. Is that what you're talking about?

I'll tell you that they got thousands and thousands of new members after Sandy Hook, right? Wow. Because the suggestion to its members and to the gun-owning community is that because of this mass shooting, new gun restrictions will come about. Yeah.

Of course, none did. None did. None have. But it's still a boon for the NRA and its fundraising and its membership. So things are going really great for them from a money standpoint. And it's during this period that a lot of the corruption begins to expand during this time of plenty. and their membership really wanted was the election of Donald Trump. And they, they really pushed for it. In fact,

they, the NRA spent more money to support Donald Trump's election in 2016 than even Trump's own super back. Wow. Right. So this happens, this ultimately transpires as everyone knows. But once Trump is elected, fundraising goes off a cliff,

right? They're selling fear. Trump's in office. People don't think that there's a threat to their firearms and their rights. So there becomes a serious financial contraction in their organization. And this is where internal whistleblowers begin to speak up. You know, this is where internal whistleblowers begin to speak up. Reporters like me start to get into the organization and, like, report from an insider's view what is happening in the building and inside this organization.

And this leads to a serious problem. The NRA can't pay its bills. Wayne LaPierre then taps this guy who you may know named Oliver North. Oh, yeah, I've heard of him. Oliver North of the Iran-Contra scandal fame. But he's become in the intervening years like this kind of conservative figure, like this conservative movement. Yeah, it's this celebrity. And so Wayne LaPierre reaches out to his old friend, Oliver, who was, by the way, president at his wedding and witnessed a lot of this, a lot of the stuff that I described. Taps Oliver North and says, hey, can you come be the president of the NRA and help us fundraise our way out of this problem? Oliver North shows up and he's fundraising.

He's like, what is happening to all the money that I'm fundraising? Like, where's that going exactly? And he's like, we need an internal audit of the NRA to just figure out where this money that I'm fundraising, where that money's going. And this is, of course, not to Wayne's liking and not to the liking of the powerful people around Wayne. And so there's this climactic scene in my book about Oliver North confronting Wayne LaPierre in a hotel suite in Indianapolis and Wayne LaPierre pushing Oliver North out of the presidency of the NRA. Wow. I mean, it's okay. Now you've really made strange bedfellows of me.

Cause now I'm like on Oliver North's side. You've been on Wayne LaPierre's side. You've been on Oliver North's side of this conversation. Because they're raising so much money. And now what? A little contraction that happens because, you know, the Republicans gain power causes a financial meltdown. How could that be when you know, how could this not be a financially healthy organization? There must be something going wrong. Of course, you'd want to get to the bottom of it. And this guy's telling you not to get to the bottom of it. Like, yeah, as a member of the organization, you'd want to know what the fuck is happening.

Man, we talked about, you know, how this book is about factions and backstabbing and greed and cowardice. and cowardice. And, you know, like there's a twist to all this, which is that, you know, that there are so many different groups that were kind of backstabbing each other inside the NRA. I mentioned Angus McQueen. He was the ad man, the messaging guy that was for decades the head of, you know,

what the NRA's strategic communications would be. So his son-in-law gets involved in all of this. Wow. He comes in as one of the NRA's lawyers and begins trying to push his father-in-law out after his father-in-law had made tens of millions of dollars from the NRA. And it just gets into this bloody kind of succession type, like internal politics.

Yeah, hold on a second. Has anyone optioned this book yet? You don't have to tell me that, but this would be a great TV show. All right, you don't have to tell me that. You know what, Adam? I think so, too. I think so, too. Okay, we'll talk after the show.

Maybe we want to do a deal. I'm sure you've already got, I'm sure Adam McKay is already all over you. Look, but what is the – when you're talking about this corruption, what is the corruption? Like where is the money going? Do you have a sense of that? We're talking about like – yeah, the book gets into it in great detail and in extravagant color, right? Like we're talking about millions of dollars in private jets and private cars and limos. We're talking about extravagant meals, lavish trips to the Bahamas and Lake Como in Italy. We're talking about six figures in Italian menswear for Wayne LaPierre from a place on Rodeo Drive called Zegna.

You know, this is like, it just goes on and on and on. The New York Attorney General identified more than $60 million over just three years that Wayne LaPierre and other top NRA executives misappropriated or were involved in misconduct. They're just like spending on shit, just like creature comforts for themselves. They're just spending it on stakes. There's always an excuse, right? Like Wayne LaPierre will say either, you know, I didn't know about those expenditures or I didn't know I couldn't do that. But like here's an example.

After Parkland, Wayne LaPierre gets on a private jet and goes to the Bahamas to hang out on the yacht. And he's like, this is for my own personal security. This is for my safety. I'm worried about my own safety. He's not able, by the way, to explain how going to a foreign country with a bunch of unvetted people might make him more safe than, for example, hanging out at his heavily secured house in the D.C. area. But, like, when we talk about the allegations of corruption, and there's plentiful evidence of it. Um, you know, we're, we're,

what we're really talking about are these private jets, uh, these lavish meals, clothing, uh, just basically living like a, like a king. Yeah.

And you're, you're talking about like, you know, this reminds me of, I don't know, Scientology stories are like televangelists from the eighties, like that kind of, you know, this reminds me of, I don't know, Scientology stories or like televangelists from the eighties, like that kind of, you know, taking this money that's supposed to go for a nonprofit purpose and like using it to just rad. Okay. I don't feel bad for Wayne LaPierre

anymore because, because he's clearly probably your empathy, your empathy as we, as we tell the story is beginning to show. I think, I mean, is think. I mean, is any money being like squirreled away? Are they buying any real estate? Are they doing any of that sort of thing? Anyone ending up in a Swiss bank account or what? You know, there was this big, there was this mansion that the NRA almost ended up buying that is in Texas. And basically, the deal fell apart when the LaPierres wanted a golf course membership

associated with the purchase of the home. They were saying, hey, we need this place in Texas for our own personal safety. You hear that again, right? It costs millions of dollars. We need it for our own kind of personal safety. But then people around them were like, well, if it's for your safety, why do you need this golf course membership included, like thrown in on us? What does that have to do with your personal safety? The deal fell apart ultimately. But there are plenty of lavish perks that pretty much you name it, they received it over their years as head of this organization. It's really remarkable. And have NRA members found out about this corruption enough that it has also diminished contributions?

Yeah, contributions are down. Membership is down over the last few years. So there's been kind of the trajectory of the gun issue. And then there's been the trajectory of the organization. And the organization right now is in shambles. I was talking about a revolt among some of his own members. There's this kind of movement of NRA members trying to reform the organization and demand transparency from their executives. And that's kind of a free-flowing thing that's happening right now. It sounds a little bit like it's the problem of the dog that caught the car. It's they've achieved every single one of their policy goals

that they ever set out to achieve, but now they're struggling in success almost. I think the misconduct occurs as the dog is trying to get to the car, right? Like it's not, it's not, they were bored. So they decided to get a bunch of, you know, private, like our mission is done. We've, we've gotten, you know, all the gun rights that we want. So now we're going to go engage in a bunch of, you know, misconduct. But, but, you know, in the process of being so successful, and while they were being successful, they raised a lot of monies from a, you know, sports person's, you know,

actual rifle person's, you know, something closer to the, to AAA, right? A traditional, you know, advocacy and hobbyist group to a culture war organization. Do you see any connection between that transition and the growing corruption at the NRA? Is there some relation between those two metamorphoses? Only in the sense that, you know, what motivated the NRA to morph that way was the money. And it's that money that they then used, they misused, right? That what really motivated them to turn into a more culture war oriented organization was that it was what sold to its members. It was what sold in terms of being able to get more people to sign up and to donate money. And when that was working, that's also when the corruption began to emerge

and really solidify and expand. It is wild how much just, you can just make a lot of money off of the culture war. I know comedians who have done this. They just have turned into full-time. They stopped making jokes and now they just do culture war shit on YouTube. They make a lot of money. It's like, it's hard not to be tempted. Like, if I just said this, some of this stuff,

yeah, I could get a lot of Patreon subscribers. There's a lot of money in that kind of rage. It's remarkable. And we're now zooming back to the societal problem. But it's weird how society's incentives have changed in terms of money, away from prestige towards clicks and subscriptions and whatever else, right? Like our social media companies, it's like some bad mid-20th century science fiction film

where the computer has learned what really drives engagement and it's the things that make society the worst off, right? Yeah. Like that drive anger and sadness and violence. And that's what's motivating people. But it's not just, it's also a feedback loop, right? That organizations like the NRA push their audiences in this direction,

which then results in more fervent belief and more fervent, you know, more money comes as a result of it. But also, it both sates the appetite, but it creates an appetite for more of it. Right. I mean, I think that if you're kind of in this loop, you never really want to quite catch the car if you're the dog chasing the car. You just want to be an inch short every time.

Yeah. in the car, you just want to be an inch short every time. Yeah. And that drives more extreme, more and more extreme demands, not outcomes, but, well, I guess outcomes over time, but it drives more and more extreme demands. Which is how they end up portraying something like a new mass shooting comes along. They portray it as, aha, they're going to come take your guns away,

even though it's politically impossible to take people's guns away. But portraying it that way allows them to – It's not even remotely in the realm of possibility that, you know, that Congress will pass a law confiscating firearms. Not even in the – it's not remotely in the realm of possibility. I mean, it's almost, it's almost like, you know, you, you heard, you've heard, you hear gun people talk about, well, to prevent mass shootings, we should turn schools into hard targets. We should arm schools so that, you know, people, you know, don't want to show up there with a gun because there's, they know they'll be shot and killed.

You know, don't want to show up there with a gun because they know they'll be shot and killed. That's almost I understand the logic to an extent, because that is what the amount of deaths caused versus the amount of fucking blowback I'm going to have to get to deal with this. Uh, it's not number one on my list. You know, it's not, it's, it's the highest hanging fruit, not the lowest hanging fruit because there's all these motherfuckers with rhetorical guns hanging around. Um, it's a very, it seems like it's been a very effective strategy. Yeah. I think, I think that the, I mean, this kind of leads us back to where we kind of started this conversation, right? Which is the power of the NRA. Yeah. And where they get it. And it's from their membership. It's from the millions of people who will show up if the NRA calls on them. And, you know, the NRA is organizationally is in financial and legal, deep financial and legal trouble, but it can still get, you know, its membership.

Its membership is diminished, but it's still quite substantial. Yeah. It can get those folks to show up. Well, so this leads me to a really good sort of set of final questions here, which is if the New York AG is successful and manages to get a ruling that the NRA can't exist, which is what you said they're gunning for, and like shut down the organization as a nonprofit, what do you think happens? I mean, there'll still be those millions and millions of Americans who sincerely believe in, you know, that way of thinking about guns. What happens next? Yeah, I mean, I think that that trajectory continues for a period of time. Look, because,

like you said, the same people, these millions of people, even with or without the NRA, they're going to exist tomorrow and believe the same things they believed yesterday. they believed yesterday. The organizational structure and the efficiencies may not exist, but something else will come. I mean, there are other gun rights organizations in America, but there will be a lull. There will be a period of time where that's more difficult, I think. Yeah, but I mean, it's hard not to imagine like, okay, we can't be a nonprofit. Let's just spin up again as a for-profit. Wayne and his buddies, you know, finding, finding a way to keep it rolling. I mean, if the audience is still there, the appetite is still there. If the culture war still makes you money, you can probably find another way to do it.

This is why the court case is so important, right? And the details of the ruling, what the judge ultimately decides. The judge has a variety of options to clean house and kick a bunch of executives out to dissolving the NRA entirely. And even if it does dissolve the NRA, you know, the NRA has all sorts of assets, millions of dollars worth of real estate and other assets that need to be kind of portioned out to other gun organizations in the

country. And so where, you know, the nature that that takes is going to be really important for the future of gun politics. Yeah. When is that court case going to be decided? We've been looking at the spring of 2022 as kind of the big date where those issues are going to begin to be decided. It could take quite a deal longer. But that's what I'm going to be watching really very closely next year. And do you think, let's say the bombshell happens and the organization is spun down. all happens and the organization is spun down, I mean, do you think that you said there'll at least be a period where, you know, that organization is not happening, those efficiencies are gone? Do you think that changes anything about the gun debate in America? Or do you feel that,

you know, hey, it's, well, you know, have new folks wearing the same suits? Does that metaphor make sense? I'm not sure it does, but you know what I mean. It's hard for me to say, but I am, you know, I think that what I was saying earlier about how its membership remains the same, still exists regardless of the organization itself, and that it's millions of members showing up, being an implicit threat to lawmakers not to cross their views, that still exists.

And that'll still exist if the NRA is dissolved. So it's kind of a more pessimistic view of the future of gun politics. Yeah. I mean, someone's going to end up with that mailing list that the NRA has, and they're going to be sending out letters that say the Democrats are going to try to take your guns away, no matter whether or not Wayne is, you know, on the letterhead or not. I think that's right. I think that's right. Well, my God, this story is so fascinating. And it's so much more interesting than, I I think the version of the NRA that we normally get that's in the public imagination. It's thank you so much for for going deep on it. It's incredible to talk to you about it.

Yeah, it's crazy. You know, I pulled back this curtain and then I see this absolute chaos, you know, happening, you know, behind the curtain. It's just it really just crazy and remarkable to me. Is there, let's see if we can find a final thought here. I mean, is there something that you feel when people are thinking about this issue, thinking about the NRA, when you see it covered in the news that people like fundamentally misunderstand, that you want them to take away from the book or from this conversation? Yeah, I think it's kind of one of the points that's been an undercurrent in our conversation, right? Like, I entered the reporting on a book about the NRA, like, worried, like, you know,

I've done a lot of national security reporting. So I took a bunch of precautions to protect my sources and, and my data and that sort of thing, almost like I was dealing with a nation state adversary, right? Like, I'm worried that these guys are like, ruthlessly effective, they're and my data and that sort of thing, almost like I was dealing with a nation-state adversary. I'm worried that these guys are ruthlessly effective. They're going to be trying to disrupt me at every opportunity. And I start reporting about it, and there's just chaos and mismanagement at every, just comedic almost, how badly the organization is run. And for so many years, the organization managed to be led poorly and still successful because of

how much money they had that they could lose some efficiencies to mismanagement. But when the spigot got turned off after Trump was elected, it got into immense trouble. And that's kind of, that's where the story leads us to today. Incredible. Tim, thank you so much for coming on and talking to us about it. It's been fascinating. Well, thanks so much for having me, Adam. The book, once again, is called Misfire. What's the subtitle? Inside the Downfall of the NRA. And if you want it, you can pick up a copy at our special bookshop, factuallypod.com slash books, or wherever you get your books at your local bookshop. Any other particular booksellers you want to plug?

I'm a big fan of independent booksellers. So you're local. There you go. All right. Thank you so much, Tim Mack, for coming on the show. Of course. Anytime. All right. Thank you so much, Tim Mack, for coming on the show.

Of course. Anytime. Well, thank you once again to Tim for coming on the show. If you enjoyed that as much as I did and you want to check out his book, you can check it out once again at factuallypod.com slash books. That's factuallypod.com slash books. And when you buy a book there, you'll be supporting not just the show, but your local bookstore as well. I want to thank our producers, Chelsea Jacobson and Sam Roudman, our engineer, Ryan Connor,

Andrew WK for our theme song, the fine folks at Falcon Northwest for building me the incredible custom gaming PC that I'm recording this very episode for you on. You can find me at every social media site at Adam Conover or at adamconover.net. And until next week, we'll see you next time on Factually. Thank you so much for listening. That was a hate gun podcast.