HEADLINE: Impact
Interview With Peter Flaherty

GUESTS:  Peter Flaherty

BYLINE:  Bill O'Reilly

BODY:
O'REILLY: In THE FACTOR "Follow Up" segment tonight, the finances of Jesse Jackson. As you may know, THE FACTOR conducted a major investigation of the reverend's nonprofit groups, and his accounting practices were vague, to say the least.

Jackson did hire some new people, but now comes word that Rainbow/PUSH and his other entities are laying people off, and donations to his concerns are dropping.

Joining us now from Washington is Peter Flaherty, the president of the National Legal and Policy Center. Jesse Jackson's in New York here for the Wall Street Project this week, and he held a press conference, said, Hey, I got to
lay people off. What's going on?

PETER FLAHERTY, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL LEGAL AND POLICY CENTER: There are some indications that Jesse Jackson is hurting. His groups have had growth or the last dozen or so years, and this is the first indication of a downturn. And Jackson has confirmed that he has laid people off and his donations are down.

He's alleged that it's the result of 9/11, but knowing the kind of big corporate grants he gets, the six-figure grants, I doubt 9/11 has had much impact on his fund raising, and most of it goes back to what happened last spring with the allegations regarding the payoffs to the mistress.

O'REILLY: All right, Karen Stanford. So you think that the corporations are backing away from him?

FLAHERTY: Well, a little bit. I think that it would be premature to say that Jackson's finished. For instance, at the Wall Street conference this week, there's still a high-profile, very credible people taking part, like Ken Grasso, the head of the New York Stock Exchange. The exchange itself has kicked in six-figure amounts this year. You know, it's a little unfair. If you buy or sell a share of stock in this country, you indirectly support Jesse Jackson. And...

O'REILLY: Well, yes, I mean, the New York Stock Exchange been in bed with him for a long time. And I got his 2000 preliminary fund raising for the CEF, the Citizenship Education Fund, which is where he paid his mistress, out of those
funds. And he raised about $10 million, 1999 about 9.9. So he was just up a little bit.

You know what I think it is? I think that many corporations now see him as a shakedown artist, and...

FLAHERTY: Well...

O'REILLY: ... because Clinton's not in the White House any more, Bush is in the White House, he doesn't have any juice in D.C., so they're going, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- Toyota just caved in to him big time, and he'll make a lot
of money from Toyota. But...

FLAHERTY: Well, that's right.

O'REILLY: Go ahead.

FLAHERTY: There was an $8 billion payoff. I wrote an op-ed that appeared in newspapers around the country criticizing Toyota. I alleged that if the past was any guide, Jackson's family and friends would...

O'REILLY: Sure.

FLAHERTY: ... benefit financially from it.

O'REILLY: They all will.

FLAHERTY: Irving Miller, the Toyota spokesman, wrote an indignant letter to the editor wherever my op-ed appeared, specifically denied that anybody would benefit. But now we know. Thomas Burrell, a long-time Jackson associate, the
head of Burrell Communications, has gotten a fat contract from Toyota. A week after the deal, two of Jackson's closest supporters on Wall Street got a $300 million bond underwriting deal from Toyota Motor...

O'REILLY: Well, I got a, you don't have to...

FLAHERTY: ... Credit Corporation...

O'REILLY: ... convince us, I mean...

FLAHERTY: OK, but Toyota, Toyota...

O'REILLY: ... anybody who thinks, anybody who thinks that Toyota didn't cave in to this, you put it whatever adjective you want on it, is crazy. And it's the same old scheme that, that, that Jackson's been doing since the early late 1970s. Toyota just basically don't -- doesn't tell the truth.

I wouldn't buy a Toyota product now if they gave it to me, I wouldn't take it. I wouldn't take it.

FLAHERTY: Well, if they want to deny the obvious, that they...

O'REILLY: But I just wouldn't take it...

FLAHERTY: ... submitted to racial blackmail...

O'REILLY: Right.

FLAHERTY: ... OK, fine. But I think a publicly held big corporation like Toyota...

O'REILLY: Disgraceful.

FLAHERTY: ... has an obligation to the public to tell the truth.

O'REILLY: And their shareholders.

FLAHERTY: And this Irving Miller, this Irving Miller, who's speaking at the Wall Street conference today is the same man who denied that no one around -- that anyone around Jackson would benefit from this thing. And he was just --
he's just flat-out...

O'REILLY: It's not true.

FLAHERTY: ... not telling the truth.

O'REILLY: Flat-out not true. OK.

FLAHERTY: That's right.

O'REILLY: What a shock, corporate executives lying. See Enron.

All right. Now, Jackson himself is, I think, lost a lot of power in this country. You know, his Taliban thing was a disaster, he went up to Harvard to try to help Cornel West, Cornel West said he didn't want him there. Am I wrong?
Or is he in decline?

FLAHERTY: No, I think the luster is off Jesse Jackson. I think in the past he's always made anti-American comments and extremist comments. Before they were just tolerated. Now, after he's lost his moral authority in the wake of the
Karen Stanford episode, his remarks stick out like sore thumbs, and it's becoming an increasing problem for these businesses executives. And I think it should become an increasing problem for people like Richard Grasso, the head of the New York Stock Exchange, who still gives Jesse Jackson credibility.

O'REILLY: Yes, but you still have that big cannon, that if you can -- if you criticize Jesse Jackson, he's going to throw the R-word on you and, you know, those, you know how those companies are, they're still very, very afraid of him.

Mr. Flaherty, thanks for the update, we appreciate it.

FLAHERTY: Thank you, Bill.

O'REILLY: Plenty more ahead as THE FACTOR moves along this evening. A guy who worked for Enron will be here to give us the inside story on how the regular folks got hosed by this corporation. And should Americans be paying the medical bills of illegal immigrants? You're not going to believe what you're going to hear. We hope you stay tuned.