Whistleblower Christopher Wylie on Steve Bannon's role in Cambridge Analytica — Transcript

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1. 0:00then on the video screen behind us they
2. 0:02showed Steve Fannin the former yeah
3. 0:06head of Breitbart news the former White
4. 0:08House official the former head of
5. 0:09President Trump's campaign I gather you
6. 0:13knew Steve Madden in his Cambridge
7. 0:16analytic incarnation yes vice president
8. 0:18yeah you were a relatively senior
9. 0:20official in that company
10. 0:22tell me about Steve Maddens role in
11. 0:25Cambridge analytic and what it did and
12. 0:27to what extent he knew about the things
13. 0:28that was doing including the collection
14. 0:30of Facebook data well he he knew about
15. 0:33everything that was going on in the
16. 0:34company because everything had to be
17. 0:37authorized by him you know it was it was
18. 0:39it was it was him and Rebecca Mercer
19. 0:42together who approved how money was
20. 0:45spent what projects could be what what
21. 0:48projects were focused on what they
22. 0:49weren't and also he was one of the
23. 0:51people who after you have to remember
24. 0:53like when when I joined SCL this was
25. 0:56before even you know Alexander Nix met
26. 0:58Steve ban and this is you know Cambridge
27. 1:01analytical wasn't even you know a
28. 1:02glimmer and I'm you know our eyes yet um
29. 1:05you know we were we weren't doing alt
30. 1:08right research we weren't doing all
31. 1:11right projects that all came when Steve
32. 1:13Bannon took over so Cambridge analytic
33. 1:16became Cambridge analytic abhi cuz of
34. 1:18Steve Bannon he even picked the name
35. 1:20like every it was his it very much was
36. 1:23his vision of a company and what he
37. 1:25wanted to do because when he the the
38. 1:27problem for for Steve was that you know
39. 1:30with with with with Breitbart it wasn't
40. 1:33expanding into the the mainstream in a
41. 1:37way that he wanted and when you think
42. 1:39about a culture war you need an arsenal
43. 1:43of weapons to fight a culture war and so
44. 1:45the the the notion of using a a foreign
45. 1:49military contractor that specializes in
46. 1:52information operations and it's like a
47. 1:54logical warfare for the military really
48. 1:56appealed to him because he could then
49. 1:57use that company and the big old
50. 1:59informational weapons let me just
51. 2:02clarify this for a second so there was
52. 2:04an underlying company s CL group yeah
53. 2:06based in London yeah that did would use
54. 2:08psychological operations or the military
55. 2:11including for the Department of Defense
56. 2:12here including our own
57. 2:13US government yeah British government
58. 2:15and out of that is born Cambridge
59. 2:17analytic ah when Rebecca Mercer and her
60. 2:19father invest yeah millions of dollars
61. 2:21Cambridge analytical becomes essentially
62. 2:23an American brand of the SEL yeah it it
63. 2:26it acquired the intellectual property of
64. 2:28SC I'll put that into a new company in
65. 2:32America called Cambridge analytic then
66. 2:33license back the same IP it's a SC l and
67. 2:36then had an agreement where all all
68. 2:39contracts had to then go to SC l so
69. 2:43they're like Cambridge analytic I didn't
70. 2:44have any staff right Cambridge
71. 2:46analytical was a concept it was a brand
72. 2:48it was an American thing so that's you
73. 2:51know because it would look optically bad
74. 2:54you know this is one of the things that
75. 2:55I later learned is that they were
76. 2:57concerned that the optics of using a
77. 2:59foreign military contractor in American
78. 3:01elections would not play well what were
79. 3:05they thinking so but it was it was an
80. 3:09idea that was based had an office in
81. 3:11Manhattan am i right right yeah I mean
82. 3:13they they eventually set up an office
83. 3:16incorporated in Delaware yeah and the
84. 3:18Vice President was C Bannon and the
85. 3:20president was Rebecca Mercer and the
86. 3:23most important financial backer was Bob
87. 3:25Mercer
88. 3:25so this sovereign is certainly like a
89. 3:27substantial American footprint in the
90. 3:29end but all of the work was being done
91. 3:31where in in London so the the the bulk
92. 3:37of the you know there was almost no
93. 3:39Americans working in the in the company
94. 3:41because it wasn't Minh the IP got
95. 3:45acquired we weren't working in the
96. 3:47United States and you know the the
97. 3:51problem is and they were warned you know
98. 3:53repeatedly that by lawyers by Rudy
99. 3:57Giuliani's law firm sent a memo to Steve
100. 4:00Bannon saying hey you know you can't
101. 4:03have foreign agents operating in an
102. 4:05election that you can't do that and they
103. 4:08completely disregarded that and just
104. 4:10kept in kappa go away i remember having
105. 4:12conversations with them going you you
106. 4:15need to create an american team to be
107. 4:17compliant so if you were in london and
108. 4:19they're in new york or watch where ever
109. 4:21how are you interacting with steve
110. 4:22madden well he would he would come he
111. 4:24would come so he would come
112. 4:26to London all the time because he was
113. 4:29also setting up Breitbart UK so he had a
114. 4:32lot of projects on the go in in in
115. 4:35London and and so he would be there
116. 4:39frequently but you know conference calls
117. 4:41and whatnot what was he like it's funny
118. 4:45because there's two I remember two
119. 4:48different the Benin's so one when it was
120. 4:50before he took over and I actually quite
121. 4:52enjoyed talking to him because one of
122. 4:54the first conversations that I had with
123. 4:55him was on like the intersectional
124. 4:58nature of identity because he was quite
125. 5:00interested in that and you know one of
126. 5:04the things he taught he was really
127. 5:05interested in culture and he you know
128. 5:08because the Breitbart doctoring is that
129. 5:11politics flows from culture it's
130. 5:13downstream from culture so if you want
131. 5:14to change politics you have to change
132. 5:16culture and one of the things that I
133. 5:18said is like well but you can't define
134. 5:20what culture is you haven't told me what
135. 5:22culture is and until you define it you
136. 5:24can't measure it and if you can't
137. 5:25measure it you don't know what you're
138. 5:26doing you're just stabbing in the dark
139. 5:27and so one of the things that I said is
140. 5:29I said well if you look at the words and
141. 5:32language that we use to describe
142. 5:34different cultures and the words and
143. 5:38language that we use to describe
144. 5:39ourselves if people often they're the
145. 5:40same adjectives right so if you just
146. 5:43indulge in some stereotyping for a
147. 5:44second what are Italians like maybe
148. 5:47they're more passionate maybe they're
149. 5:48more neurotic they're louder if what our
150. 5:50Germans like they're sorry if I'm like
151. 5:52offending people you know there there
152. 5:55might be more organized more dutiful and
153. 5:58and when you look at that from a data
154. 6:01scientist perspective actually what
155. 6:03you're probably describing is just a
156. 6:04curve and you're describing that there's
157. 6:07the where the mean is on this curve is
158. 6:09is slightly higher or lower on certain
159. 6:13on certain traits or certain
160. 6:15characteristics of people and so the
161. 6:18building blocks of culture maybe our
162. 6:20people and their personalities and that
163. 6:23in the aggregate that is what what
164. 6:25creates culture that it is a
165. 6:29an aggregation of our commonly shared
166. 6:32characteristics and so if you wanted to
167. 6:36measure culture and you want to change
168. 6:39culture you first would need to measure
169. 6:40people and once you create a measurement
170. 6:43of people that corresponds to culture
171. 6:45when you want to move this curve one way
172. 6:48or the other you can literally create a
173. 6:50list of people you know that you need to
174. 6:52move that that one standard deviation
175. 6:55out and then that becomes your target
176. 6:57universe and so he found that really
177. 7:00interesting he also likes the idea that
178. 7:03we were working on military projects and
179. 7:05and he was the one that convinced Bob to
180. 7:08to buy into it