Crowds on Demand CEO provides insight as paid protester requests up 400% under Trump

Crowds on Demand CEO Adam Swart told "Fox & Friends" on Friday that his company has received 400% more paid protester requests this year than during the same period last year.

Fox News' Lawrence B. Jones asked the Crowds on Demand CEO how much the paid protesters that he curates for political protests typically make for their services.

"We don't comment on specific protests, but generally the range can be from the low hundreds, the low one hundreds, into a few hundred," he told Jones. "It really depends on the location, the duration and any challenges, for example, cold weather or early morning. You guys at 'Fox & Friends' know all about getting up early in the morning. We tend to pay people more [for] that."

DC PAID PROTESTER REQUESTS SURGE 400% AMID TRUMP’S FEDERAL TAKEOVER OF CITY POLICE: CROWD COMPANY

Swart's company, Crowds on Demand, states on their website that they are "best known for organizing passionate demonstrations, rallies, flash-mobs, corporate PR events, and light-hearted events such as paparazzi, brand ambassadors, and PR stunts."

Crowds on Demand CEO Adam Swart told "Fox & Friends" that his company has seen a 400% increase in requests for paid protesters this year.

The CEO noted that while there is "a lot of misinformation online" about paid protesters, the individuals employed by Crowds on Demand are only deployed for "peaceful and law-abiding protest," and are focused on "persuasion."

When asked by Jones whether protesters are paid on an hourly basis, and how much they are paid per hour, Swart didn't answer the question directly but offered some insight into what circumstances would warrant an increased pay rate.

"It's hard to give you a specific figure… If you're organizing a conservative demonstration in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that would be a higher pay rate — or a left-wing demonstration in rural Mississippi, that would be a higher rate because finding and identifying those people is harder and that might be a more tense environment in those particular locations, as you would imagine," he explained.

ADVOCACY GROUP CEO CLAIMS HE WAS OFFERED $20 MILLION TO RECRUIT PROTESTERS FOR ANTI-TRUMP DEMONSTRATIONS

Jones then asked the CEO whether the people who are being paid to protest at political events are typically aligned with the causes that they are protesting for, or if they're "just out for a paycheck."

Swart contended that his company services protests on both sides of the political aisle, and that paid protesters typically believe in the cause they are advocating for. (Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

"They genuinely share these beliefs, and I'll put it this way, right? I'm asking your listeners, your viewers right now, if you got paid a couple hundred dollars, probably mostly your viewers lean conservative, would you guys go to a BLM protest for a couple hundred dollars?" he proposed. "I bet most of your viewers are shouting into their TV screens, ‘No, I would not do that’, right?"

"So whether it's conservative, we provide — there's a lot of misinformation that we only work for the left. We work for the left and the right, but always on the side of common sense and generally on the side of the underdog. So we, a lot of conservatives, use our service because, a lot of times, there's a case where hippies with a trust fund are out there protesting, but conservatives are more likely to have jobs and families, so actually they require a little bit more of an incentive to turn out to a demonstration."

Following up on Swart's response, Jones asked the CEO which side of the political aisle hires more paid protesters from his company, the right or left.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF MEDIA AND CULTURE

Swart argued that his company is not having a decremental impact on democracy because "there's no such thing as a truly organic protest." (Breanne Deppisch/Fox News Digital))

"So we tend to be hired by the oppositional party, right? So, in the sense of right now, we are getting more requests on the federal level from Democrats, as you would imagine. But for example, in liberal states such as California, we are often brought in by conservatives because we are an outside-the-box strategy, right?" Swart responded, adding that the number of paid protesters requested by either side of the aisle "depends on who's in power."

In closing, Swart responded to Jones' critique that paid protesters are helping to create inorganic political demonstrations, and possibly misleading others into thinking that certain movements have more grassroots support than they actually do.

"The reality is, Lawrence, people have different incentives for coming out there. There's no such thing as a truly organic protest, Lawrence," he stated. "Everybody has a reason for being somewhere, whether they're flexing on Instagram, flexing for politics, staffer, or being compensated. So I don't think there is such a thing as truly organic."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP