World News – USA – Animal activist has no guilty conscience for cheating on Fox Business Bartiromo (Exclusive)

Matt Johnson of Direct Action Everywhere says several shows turned down his activist group’s pitches before landing at Fox Business pretending to be a food processing CEO

Matt Johnson says he doesn’t have « guilty conscience about putting one on Maria Bartiromo’s show » after the animal rights activist appeared on Fox Business Network Wednesday pretending to be the CEO of a food processing company.

Johnson told TheWrap exclusively on Wednesday that he and his group, Direct Action Everywhere, « strategically place feelers out there elsewhere » in attempting to land a television interview but have been turned down by « several » shows. Despite considering doing a fake interview for over a year, the plan was in full swing this week, he said when they assumed most of the show staff and bookers would be absent for the holidays and hoped to get through « People who fill up » to be replaced in who could not be so hardworking. ”

Usually Johnson handles the press for Direct Action Everywhere, where he worked for five years. On Wednesday he reversed his role a little and interviewed about his own very public action.

Also read: Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo ‘Punked’ on Air by animal activist posing as CEO of the pork producer (video)

While he wouldn’t divulge all of the « trade secrets », as he and his team led the Fox Business Network bookers to believe they really represent Smithfield Foods and its new CEO, Dennis Organ, he said the trick was “Fake e-mails contained addresses and fake phone numbers and lots of parking spaces. ”

He told TheWrap that the group found « Mornings With Maria » wasn’t « as rigorous » on review as the shows they turned down, and he didn’t feel guilty for the trick for doing it believed that the show already had a lot of « misinformation ». He pointed to the recent review of Bartiromo’s « Sunday Morning Futures » which aired the lack of evidence of fraud in Smartmatic and Dominion voting machines in the 2020 election. That fact check was conducted on Sunday following a legal threat from Smartmatic last week.

Johnson noted that he had already been on a crime for a previous investigation into the mass murder of animals at a large pork supplier, but said he took the « calculated risk » on Wednesday after consulting with the « big people » at Fox Business to appear. in his legal team.

Bartiromo said at the end of her show on Wednesday that she and her team – and with it her audience – had been punked by Johnson, who used his six minutes on the air to suggest that meat production could become another Pandemic. The longtime journalist promised to be « more vigilant » in the future, even after rolling her eyes herself during the interview with the wrong CEO.

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Maria Bartiromo, Fox Business, Fox News, Mornings with Maria, Smithfield Foods, direct action everywhere