Project Veritas claims it has been secretly recording CNN's Jeff Zucker executive calls

Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe on Tuesday claimed that for months he has eavesdropped on – and recorded – CNN President Jeff Zucker’s executive daily meetings.

In  a video posted on his social media accounts, O’Keefe, who said an insider gave him access to the calls, unmuted the 9 .a.m. conference call and confronted Zucker. 

“Hey Jeff Zucker, are you there?” O’Keefe asked. “Hey, this is James O’Keefe. We’ve been listening to your CNN calls for basically two months, recording everything. Just wanted to ask you some questions if you have a minute. Do you still feel you’re the most trusted name in news, because I have to say from what I’ve been hearing on these phone calls, I don’t know about that. And we got a lot of recordings that indicate that you’re not really that independent of a journalist.”

Zucker, who seems surprised, says: "Um, thank you for, uh, thank you for, uh, for your comments. Um, so everybody, in light of that, I think what we'll do is we'll, we'll set up an, uh, uh, a new system and we'll, uh, be back, uh – we'll do the rest of the call a little bit later."

O'Keefe then tells Zucker he plans to release the recordings at 7 p.m. Tuesday Eastern time. A request for comment from CNN went unanswered.

"So, you just heard me talk to the president of CNN Jeff Zucker and inform him that that we are going to release a number of recordings today," O'Keefe said right after Zucker signed off. "I unmuted myself into the conference line, and they're still on there they're listening to me right now. This is being livestreamed for those of you still on call. And we've recorded for a while, and we have clips of various producers talking, the president talking, describing their motives, describing their political philosophy, describing how they don't cover certain things and certain political parties," he said.

"We think it's important for the American people to know how you make the sausage is made," continued O'Keefe, known for his style of undercover reporting. "And it's important that we hold accountable the mainstream media -- the media has to be held to account. They are hurting the American people with their lies, their innuendo, their slander, the defamation, the hyperbole."

"I think Mr. Zucker is shaking in his boots right now. I think he’s very afraid of what might be coming," he added.