Today, Explained - Standoff at the NRA

Episode Date: April 29, 2019

Things are so bad at the NRA that President Trump told the organization to get its act together today. Infighting, self-dealing, and lavish spending have led to a state investigation and turmoil at the top. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There wasn't anything to watch on TV last night or to go see in the cinema this weekend, right? So everyone hung out at home and watched Hulu's all-new original series, Rami, right? Right? Okay, well, if not, all new episodes of Rami are now streaming only on Hulu. You still have a chance. In recent days, leading Democrats have proposed banning new guns and confiscating existing guns from law abiding citizens. What they don't tell you is the bad guys aren't giving up their guns. And you're not going to be giving up your

guns either. The NRA that you know and love or hate wasn't always this divisive. The National Rifle Association was founded in 1871

by two guys who just wanted to promote marksmanship. One of them worked for the New York Times. The modern-day NRA has grown out of two major changes within the organization. One was a big overhaul at an annual convention in 1977 where they shifted their focus to politics and lobbying. And the other was hiring an ad agency called Ackerman McQueen to focus on that shift shortly thereafter. What makes those two changes super interesting right now is that the NRA kind of face-planted this weekend at an annual convention because of that ad agency.

We're talking about claims of extortion, financial scandal, major power struggle between two icons of the conservative movement and one party walking out. Mark Merrimont is a senior editor at the Wall Street Journal, and I asked him just how bananas this convention in Indianapolis was this weekend. Sean, I've been covering companies and nonprofits for many years, and this was the craziest thing I have ever seen. At the heart of this shit show is the power struggle between Wayne LaPierre. Wayne LaPierre is the CEO and

what they call executive vice president of the NRA, and he's been running the gun rights group for about 30 years. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And he's credited with essentially helping turn the NRA from a grassroots gun safety organization many years ago into a powerful advocacy group and, of course, a political force. So he's the inside face of the NRA. And then there's Oliver North. Oliver North is a retired Marine lieutenant colonel. Many years ago, he played a significant role in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal. He's since become a kind of conservative darling, and he's a very high-profile figure.

And about a year ago, in fact, he became the president of the NRA. Look, all we do in the NRA is to defend freedom, but we're a convenient target when crazies go off and do things like school shootings. I guess it's worth reminding people that the NRA is a not-for-profit, and anyone who has not-for-profit experience knows that there's infighting and financial difficulties in not-for-profits. But what made this different? Well, a couple things. One is that membership was down. I think 2017 was the lowest since 2012. in a sort of irony, its finances became a little bit more constrained after President Trump was

elected because members were a little less concerned that a potentially Democratic Clinton administration might, quote, take away their gun rights. So there's been tighter budgets at the NRA. So what happens once this meeting begins? What happens at the convention? Oliver North, from what we have been able to gather, asked Wayne LaPierre to resign. He basically told Wayne LaPierre in a phone call to Wayne LaPierre's assistant that if he did resign, that this Ackerman McQueen ad agency was prepared to release some accusations of financial improprieties and some travel expenses abuses and a sexual harassment allegation against the top NRA officer. And North eventually told the board of those new allegations,

and one of them included that Wayne LaPierre received about $275,000 worth of free suits and other clothing from a vendor. We believe believe the vendor was Ackerman McQueen. Obviously not too flattering to Wayne LaPierre, but LaPierre fired back instead of resigning. He fired back with a letter accusing North of blackmailing him essentially or extorting him. The power struggle within the National Rifle Association has come to a breaking point. The group's president, Oliver North, says that he will not return for a second term in office. In a letter, the retired Marine Lieutenant General wrote that he had hoped to be renominated for a second term as president, but was, quote, informed that would not happen.

This comes two days after the CEO and the face of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, sent a note to the organization's board. So the convention ends yesterday on Sunday. Where does that leave the organization? The New York Attorney General, Letitia James, on Friday launched an investigation into the NRA's tax-exempt status, particularly these financial abuses and disclosure problems and some political activity issues, according to a document that she sent the NRA. So it's a pretty important and significant move, and it definitely threatens the NRA. In fact, President Trump this morning tweeted that the New York Attorney General was, quote,

illegally targeting the NRA and trying to destroy it. And he called on the group to get its act together, essentially. You know, all this is not really very good for the NRA. They may say that they're sort of moving on business as usual. But the other question is whether, how the members react to some of these allegations. Do you as a member want to donate your hard-earned money to a group that's buying Wayne LaPierre $275,000 worth of free suits? The NRA says that the wardrobe is justified because he does a lot of TV appearances and speeches, which is probably true. But there may be other allegations that come out. I think that things definitely have not settled down yet. In fact, they're probably just beginning.

All right, so we're all up to speed on the convention this weekend. Now we're going to have to talk about the ad agency. But we're going to do it after an ad. I'm Sean Ramos for him. This is Today Explained. of a first-generation Muslim comedian named Rami Youssef. All of the episodes are streaming on Hulu right now. If you want a little taste of what it sounds like, I found this clip of comedian Rami Youssef talking to his parents in this show. I don't know if it's like that Aziz show

where his parents are played by his actual parents, but we can all watch it together and find out. Anyway, here's the clip. No, I'm not going to go work for him. I don't care about diamonds or selling watches or whatever. I want to do something that I'm actually passionate about. Passion, you're passionate about Rami. Passion is a made-up idea.

It's for white people. Rami, the series explores what it's like to be caught between an Egyptian community that considers life a moral test and a millennial generation that thinks life has little to no consequences. All episodes are now streaming only on Hulu. Mike Spies, you've been covering all these NRA developments for The Trace and The New Yorker. How did this very successful non-profit get to this very vulnerable place? In many ways, the NRA has been very successful despite itself. It's benefited greatly from this mythology that it's the sort of

awesomely powerful organization, when in reality, I don't really think it is. There is a complete unawareness of the great divergence between the lives that are being lived by the average NRA member and even the average NRA staffer, and then the NRA executives and their top vendors and contractors. This movement has made them very rich. And over the last couple decades, one thing that's become sort of institutionalized at the NRA is that there is a real culture of greed and self-dealing and secrecy. What kind of secrecy? I don't think members fully understand the NRA's current financial situation and how it got there. It's been running deficits.

In 2017 alone, it had to borrow millions of dollars from its foundation. It's frozen pensions. It's laid people off. The NRA is saying that this has happened because it's fallen into the clutches of state regulators in New York with whom they're currently engaged in a lawsuit. In reality, you know, we've got the NRA's longtime public relations firm, Ackerman McQueen. The ad agency. Yeah.

What's fascinating about it is that it's on the one hand, it's been so important for the organization, that relationship built the modern NRA. On the other hand, it's also the leading factor in its financial demise. So what exactly is the relationship between the NRA and this ad agency, Ackerman McQueen? It's generally really difficult to sort of decipher where the NRA ends and Ackerman McQueen. It's generally really difficult to sort of decipher where the NRA ends and Ackerman McQueen begins and vice versa. You know, roughly a quarter of the NRA staff is managed by former Ackerman McQueen employees. They're all these sweetheart deals for former senior NRA employees who retire, then they become consultants. They get contracts that are worth tens of thousands of dollars a month. Plus, they get several hundred

thousand dollars at the end of the year in bonuses. They also are spending several hundred thousand dollars in expenses. And we're ultimately talking about hundreds of millions of dollars having gone out the door. I mean, in 2017 alone, the NRA paid Ackerman McQueen and its affiliates more than $40 million. The NRA employees have like beater cars in the parking lot. The Ackerman staff, you know, pull up like with Lexuses. The fruits of this relationship are really evident. And what exactly is the NRA getting in exchange for all that cheddar? Ackerman McQueen, among many things that it has done for the organization,

is responsible for the vast majority of its messaging. So much of the time when you think that you're interacting with the NRA, you're really interacting with Ackerman McQueen. Currently, the most prominent example of that is NRA TV. Most people are pretty familiar with people like Dana Lesh. I'm a mom. And just like millions of other women, that's why I own guns. We're responsible, we're law-abiding, and we're everything that makes America strong. What they do not know is that Dana Lash is actually paid by Ackerman McQueen, not the NRA. The videos that you've seen that circulated widely, especially after Donald Trump was elected, in which Dana Lash threatened the New York Times or talked about the clenched fist of truth, that's all Ackerman McQueen.

They use their movie stars and singers and comedy shows and award shows to repeat their narrative over and over again. The only way we stop this, the only way we save our country and our freedom is to fight this violence of lies with a clenched fist of truth. I'm the National Rifle Association of America and I'm freedom's safest place. Does the NRA rubber stamp these videos? Do they get circulated amongst, I don't know, executives at the NRA? Or is it just, do they just have carte blanche to make whatever kind of messaging they want? It does operate on its own. One thing you'll hear from

folks who work in the NRA's lobbying division is that they particularly have no oversight with respect to anything Ackerman McQueen does. So what often happens is Ackerman McQueen's messaging, specifically, I should say, NRA TV's messaging, acts at cross-purposes with the NRA's lobbying efforts. Like it'll step on their toes and they complain about it all the time. After Sandy Hook, for example, when Wayne LaPierre finally came out and said, we think the solution is to put armed police officers in schools. And the response to that was that Akron McQueen put out a very controversial ad targeting President Obama's children. Are the president's kids more important than yours?

Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school? At the same time, quietly, the NRA's federal lobbyists had been speaking with lawmakers because they assumed they were going to have to make some concessions in the wake of such a horrible and devastating event. When that ad ran, lobbyists got calls from furious lawmakers, just couldn't believe that the NRA would run that, and were saying, like, if we were going to work with you in any capacity, you know, on post-Newtown legislation, it's done. So after years of provocation, this relationship is now on the fritz to boot. There's this investigation from the New York Attorney General. How much worse could things get for the NRA? Things would get a lot worse for

them. The IRS ultimately could take away the organization's tax-exempt status if it was justified. What would that mean for the NRA? Well, then it would just cease to exist. Really? I'm actually telling you what the NRA said in its own words. The NRA has recently filed a lawsuit against Ackerman McQueen. And it's essentially saying Ackerman McQueen's practices have jeopardized our nonprofit status, placing blame on them, not at all in itself. And it says very directly, our nonprofit status is what allows us to exist.

It's gone and we're effectively, we're gone too. Mike, I'm trying to reconcile the fact that the NRA is at once so messy, so close to broke, and so powerful and influential in America? Help me out here. One part is the NRA has always had something specific going for it, which is that there's a deep history in this country that revolves around gun culture, which is real. And then the second thing is its messaging is just predicated on the idea that there is this ongoing fight between coastal elites and real Americans who are self-reliant. They take care of themselves. They take care of their families. They hunt their own food and they do all this with the most essential tool, which is a gun. For those who buy into it, that narrative gives their lives great meaning. I mean, it's not so different than

religion. And do these so-called real Americans care that Wayne LaPierre is buying $200,000 suits and throwing money at this greasy ad agency? Even within the gun community, if you will, there's a lot of suggestion that they're taking this very seriously, that they're not just writing it off as like a hit piece. But if you've organized your life around something, I think no matter what, it's really hard to turn away from it. Because if that thing is the centerpiece of your life, then, you know, what are you left with? Wrestling with that, if you really wanted to, could bring on a real crisis of identity.

One way in which the NRA has sort of preempted all negative reporting and defends itself is just by continuously telling its members that it is under attack from coastal elites. And if you're already subscribing to that message, you could certainly view this reporting through that prism and you don't have to deal with it. One last reminder that there's only like three episodes of Game of Thrones left. One of those dragons is going to sit on the Iron Throne and then you'll have nothing to watch ever again except for Hulu's all-new original series, Rami,

based on the real-life experiences of Muslim-American comedian Rami Youssef. Check it out. It's streaming now.