WEEKEND EDITION- Over 200 Charged in Capitol Riots and Whole Categories of Friends Lost to the Pandemic

This is a compilation of some of the most compelling stories of the week.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the Daily Dive Weekend edition. I'm Oscar Ramirez,
and every week I explore the top stories making waves
in the news and some that are just playing interesting.
I'll connect you with the journalists and the people who
know the story and bring you news without the noise
so you can make an informed decision. You can catch
a new episode of The Daily Dive every Monday through Friday,
and that's ready when you wake up. On the weekend edition,

(00:27):
I'll be bringing you some of the best stories from
the week. As the second impeachment trial of President Trump
played out this past week, the main question was did
he incite rioters to storm the capitol To explore that.
We can look at the over two people that have
been arrested and charged so far in the siege. Mostly
everyone there was a Trump supporter, some of which said

(00:49):
Trump did inspire their actions. Others have been tied to
far right extremist groups, Some had ties to law enforcement
in the military, and some were charged with conspiracy, the
most serious charge. For more on those that stormed the
capitol and their stories, will speak to Tom Dreisbach, investigative
correspondent at NPR. When we started this project, we were

(01:09):
thinking about how every day it seems we're getting new
charges brought by the Justice Department against people who are
alleged to have taken part in the rioting and the
insurrection at the Capitol. And so what we wanted to
know is are there any commonalities in this group? And honestly,
looking at the more than two criminal cases that have
been filed, it can be hard to find some trends.

(01:30):
I mean, there are people who are alleged to have
committed conspiracy, which is a very serious charge, and that
they allegedly planned the attack on the Capitol for months,
beginning as far back as days after the November election.
And then there's people who allegedly just sort of we're
in the crowd and got caught up in the moment.
What unites all of them really is their support for

(01:51):
Donald Trump and in general, this idea that they bought into,
the idea that the election was stolen from Trump and
that there was widespread fraud, and there's no evidence that
either of those things are true. You mentioned conspiracy, So
this is one of the most serious charges that people
can face in this How many people were charged with this,
and I mean, these are just the people that were

(02:12):
caught in being charged. You know, obviously, if they were organizing,
there might be a lot more people involved in it,
but talk about the ones that we know. At least,
there's around a dozen people so far who have been
charged with conspiracy, and the charges relate to a handful
of cases. In one of those cases, the government alleges
that a group of people associated with the Oath Keepers,
and if people aren't familiar with them, they're an extremist

(02:34):
far right organization that grew up about a decade ago.
They specifically target for recruitment people who are in the
military or who are veterans or law enforcement, and the
government has alleged that people in that group planned this
attack on the Capitol. Going back for a while now,
the government is also alleged that members of the Proud
Boys group, this far right, often violent and hateful gang,

(02:59):
they also engage eased in conspiracy, and in one of
the court documents, there's also an allegation that one of
the Proud Boys said that he was going to kill
Mike Pence if they have the opportunity. So these are
some very serious allegations in these court papers relating to conspiracy,
and those are some of the most serious charges that
people in this large group of more than two hundred

(03:20):
now face. And you mentioned, you know, the oathkeepers and
how they try to recruit military law enforcement. That's one
of the things that officials and lawmakers are really concerned with,
is kind of the extremism crop coming up through these channels.
That's one of the things they're looking into as well.
There were a striking number of military veterans in this group.
Around fifteen percent had law enforcement or military ties by

(03:44):
our accounts so far. And and I should say that
we continue to add to this database as more charges
are unveiled by the federal government. And in the US
there's about seven percent of the adult population are veterans,
so it seems to be an overrepresented group in the defendants.
It related to the capital and experts on extremism say

(04:04):
there's not a lot of evidence that veteran necessarily are
more susceptible to extremist ideology. But the Defense Department does
say that extremism in its ranks is a major issue
that they're working to combat. The new Secretary of Defense,
Lloyd Austin, says this is a top priority for him
and the Biden administration, and there was actually a poll
by the Military Times, the Military Publication that about a

(04:27):
third of active duty service members say that they had
witnessed personally racist activity or white nationalist activity, like people
with swastika tattoos, that kind of thing. And so clearly
it's an issue that the military is actively dealing with,
and there might be clues to the extent of that
problem in these core papers related to the Capital riot.
Most of the people that are charged in all of

(04:48):
this are being charged primarily with allegations of reaching the building,
breaching the Capitol building, and you know from there the
other charges can be added on destruction of property, all
that other stuff. As I mentioned that at NPR, you
guys have like a full list. We know the names
of these people, we know what they're being charged with.
Are there any other stories of people that stand out

(05:09):
to you, because you know, as we mentioned at the beginning,
a lot of people did say, well, we were following
the president. He told us to come out here. You know,
they believe all this stuff going on. Any other stories
that stick out to you. There's a couple of things
that really stick out with me to one extent, I
think in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the
Capitol of the images that we saw were a little
bit misleading. We saw a lot of footage from the

(05:32):
rotunda of people sort of milling about. It didn't seem
that violent. But as these charges have been unveiled, we
have received word and evidence of really pretty intense violence
that was brought on by these rioters. I mean, there's
allegations against one man who is a military veteran who
allegedly brought a hockey stick and be members of the

(05:52):
Capitol Police with that hockey stick repeatedly. Um. There's another
allegations of against several other people that came armed with
bullet in fests or bear spray like which is an
irritant spray, and that they use that against the Capitol police.
And then there are other people who appeared to have
just been along for the chaos. Of the allegations against
one man that I read today that he went in

(06:15):
and found a bottle of wine inside the Capitol building,
which he then chugged. He then took a book of
senate procedure and then allegedly sold it to a person
for forty dollars. And so the charges really run the gamlet.
It really describes a picture of absolute chaos and some
extreme violence inside the Capitol. And you know, we're watching
a lot of the video what you just described right now,

(06:37):
but the guys stealing the book and trying to sell
that that was one of the most curious things to
me because I was seeing people on the floor of
the Senate, I believe it was, and they were rifling
through desks and looking for documents and taking pictures, And
that was the most curious thing to me, is like,
who knows what a senator might have left behind when
they got evacuated at all, but it could have been
sensitive information. You know. That was one of the things

(06:58):
that really stood out to me. In the federal government,
and the Justice Department has pointed that out, that people
were looking at potentially very sensitive information. One woman allegedly
took a laptop from Nancy Pelosi's office. Now there's word
that it was just used for presentations, that it wasn't
necessarily super sensitive national security information. But obviously when you
have an unanticipated breach of the US Congress, there is

(07:22):
a lot of material that it could be extremely sensitive
lying around. And I think we're still really only starting
to piece together how damaging that attack may have been
on a number of levels. Are we seeing that a
lot of people are expressing regret for their actions on
that day. One of the people that I saw a
lot of coverage was a woman named Jennifer Ryan. She

(07:43):
was a realtor from Texas. She went out there. She
said she believed she was following the President's orders to
go out there. But she has this whole story of like,
you know, I went out there with some friends. I
didn't expect all this stuff to happen. But she, you know,
at the same time, posted pictures of herself to Facebook,
I mean, really documented herself doing the actions. But she
said she feels really bad, she feels duped by the

(08:04):
whole thing. I think she even asked for a pardon
from President Trump. Obviously she didn't get one. And this
is kind of the sense that we're getting from her.
You know, she's just completely remorsel. But are other people
in this realm as well. It really runs the gamut
so far. I mean, the sense you get from the
court papers is that the people who went inside the
capitol in many cases seemed to expect no consequences for

(08:27):
their actions. In the moment. I mean people were posting
on Facebook, on Instagram, they were live streaming as they
were and now as the Justice Department alleges committing federal crimes,
they were creating the evidence that would later be used
against them in court and possibly bring some very serious
prison time in some cases, and in the days afterward,
I think people's reactions have really varied. I mean, in

(08:51):
some cases, we don't know whether someone has expressed regret
or not, because they're currently in jail waiting charges because
the government thinks they're either a flight risk or they're
a risk are continuing to commit crimes. In other cases,
you know, we have heard people say I really regretted this.
In a couple of cases, people thought that President Trump
was really behind them, and as you mentioned, Jenna Ryan

(09:11):
said she was hoping for a pardon from Trump that
did not happen. So I think we're starting to get
a really wide variety of reactions as people realize the
gravity of what happened at the Capital and a serious
prison time in some cases that they might face. Some
people said they expected President Trump to be marching with
them to the Capital building. That's how that's how deep

(09:32):
in they were. The last question I have is we're
going through the impeachment trial right now. A lot of
them are pointing to these all these instances and these
people's words in that trial. But as far as these defendants,
you know, using the defense that well, we were following
the president's orders. What have legal experts said about how
effective that might be of a defense. Well, it's a

(09:53):
potentially very risky legal strategy for these defendants. I mean
with how the defense attorneys have said they're going to
use this. One defense attorney apparently went as far as
to say that their client was brainwashed by Trump into
committing these acts. But it's not a position that defense
attorney wants to be in because to use this defense
that you know, Trump egged people on to do this,

(10:14):
you're already essentially admitting that my client did these acts
and I'm trying to bring up mitigating circumstances. So that's
not a position that any defense attorney wants to be in.
But in many cases, as we mentioned, there's people who
were filming themselves inside the capital and creating a ton
of evidence on top of the surveillance footage and officer

(10:35):
police officer body camp footage sets out there. So there's
a mountain of evidence out there against some people, so
they're looking for any mitigating circumstances they can find to
try and use as a defense. Tom Drysbach, investigative correspondent
at NPR, thank you very much for joining us, Thanks
for having me appreciate it. Finally, for this week, The

(10:59):
pandemic has disrupted our lives in many ways, including our
social lives and friendships. And it's possibly a race and
entire category of friends. We once enjoyed people that might
not be in our inner circle, but acquaintances, friends you
see while watching sports, even coworkers you don't see as
much anymore. All these friendships are described as weak ties.
But for more and why these friendships are vital, and

(11:21):
the deeper appreciation we have for them now after the pandemic,
will speak to Amanda Mole, staff writer at The Atlantic.
This is something that I could noticed pretty early on
in the pandemic, but I sort of chopped it up
to the fact that I am a really extroverted social
chatty person. I love to chat with people, people who
work at the coffee shop I go to, and the
ups guy who always comes to my building and things

(11:43):
like that I just like to talk. So I noticed
that I was missing all of these like little incidental
interactions pretty early. But I didn't know if that was
something that people who aren't as social as I am
we'll feeling. So it's time we're on. I noticed more
and more types of people I was missing out on
and just tell bummed out. I felt about it all
the time, and eventually I realized while watching a Netflix

(12:05):
show in which one of the first scenes of the
series is the main character meeting her boyfriend at a
bar while everybody's watching baseball, and I just thought about
watching football in a bar, the bar that I go
to every fall weekend normally, and realized that I just
really missed being around a bunch of like, sort of
familiar people all doing the same thing at the same time.
I missed seeing the bartenders that I saw every weekend.

(12:26):
I missed seeing lots of people who I know by
first name or who I know by site that who's
you know, social media information I don't have, And it's
just sort of snowballed from there, and I realized that
this was something that a lot of other people were
experiencing too. We have our inner circle and we know
those people and we try to keep in contact with
them as much as possible. But this kind of outer circle,

(12:47):
these people that also enrich our lives in a lot
of different ways. They can be just as important as
our main relationships and sociology. I like the way you
you mentioned this doesn't really have a name for this,
but they are called weak ties. So this is anything
from acquaintances. As you were mentioning people in the bars,
all these other people, and I'm with you on that front.

(13:08):
I miss those people. I think one of the reasons
that people have had such a difficult time articulating this
sense of loss that they have over these people in
their lives is that we don't really have language in
the US to talk about all of these different types
of connections. We have the word friend, and we have
the word acquaintance, but there's just not like a rich
language around all the people that matter in your life.

(13:29):
At first, I felt a little bit selfish because I
have been really lucky. I have a lot of close
friends within a couple of blocks of my apartment. I
have been seeing them throughout the situation in safe ways.
We have access to resources to do that, so and
I felt a little bit like I was being greedy
by missing all of these other people. But I started
to look into the sociology of it, and we need
all of these different types of ties and relationships and

(13:50):
interactions in order to keep us mentally and physically healthy.
This has kind of far reaching effects. It's not just
people at the bar and all that. It crawls into
work life, working from home life. All these different types
of friends and casual encounters that we would have would
shape you kind of bring some little joy to your life,
but these are different. Talk about this in the context
of the workplace now, because that's another big disruptor we've

(14:12):
been dealing with. One of the first ways that it
occurred to me that this might harm people in the
long term in some way, or at least change their
lives in some way in the long term, is at work.
Offices are built environments meant to encourage certain type of behaviors,
and often those behaviors are coworkers getting together and chatting
for a few minutes in the communal kitchen, people collaborating

(14:33):
with each other on a project in a conference room,
things like that, and just being able to look across
the table in a meeting and see someone else having
the same reaction to something that you're having. All of
those little interactions and then being able to run into
a cup of coffee with somebody spur the moment because
you run into ran into them in the hallway. Those
interactions make somebody part of a workplace, make somebody part

(14:55):
of an organization, especially when you're young or when you're
new to a job, have in those little interactions help
you integrate into the structure of the place that you are.
If you can't get integrated into that type of structure,
then you have a hard time making a name for yourself,
becoming a valued co worker. Things like that, and it
also hurts collaboration. I talked to one researcher about some

(15:17):
stuff he had found about conversational reciprocity and what we
need in the workplace. Especially when one person is instructing
another person on how to do something, is unstructured time
for the person who is doing the task to put
in their two cents to become an equal part of
the conversation with with their boss. Essentially, and on zoom
and things like that, you lose those opportunities because so

(15:40):
many of these digital interactions are very structured, and everybody
knows going into them who is supposed to talk and
when about what? For how long? You mentioned something too
about kind of isolation in your article. When we don't
have these other types of friendships and interactions to it
can push you further into isolation and in our bubbles

(16:00):
and things that we see how these conspiracy theories start
to flourish because we're pushed into isolation and these tinier bubbles.
One of the things that really struck me as I
was doing the research on this top I get talked
to these experts is that the weak ties in our lives,
that people on the periphery of our social lives are
a useful grounding resource. They keep us tied to our communities,

(16:24):
to the physical world, to the people around us, to
the cities we live in. And when you lose those people,
a lot of people whose are really meaningful source of
a source of support, source of comfort, source of like
a shared understanding of the world around you. So people
go online looking for that. There are healthy ways to
find that online. You might find a forum that's all

(16:45):
about knitting, or a forum that's all about baseball, or
whatever it is that your interest is, or if you
end up on the wrong side of the algorithm, you
might end up in q and on, or you might
end up in an extremist Facebook group or something like that,
because what those groups offer and what they prey on
in people is people looking for a sense of certainty,

(17:06):
people looking for an order to the world and understanding
of the forces that are acting on them and what
they can do about it. When you lose all your
social ties because of a long term disaster like the
pandemic that we're in, those things become even more seductive
to people, which is I think a big reason that
we've seen an acceleration and those types of groups on

(17:27):
the Internet in the past year. According to some of
the experts you spoke to, though all is not lost,
these relationships, these weak ties, so to speak, can be
built up back again, and we're seeing vaccines roll out.
We're hoping, obviously things will get back to normal soon,
and these are the kind of things that can pick
up pretty quickly. I did like the way, you know,
people who have been saying that there could be a

(17:48):
roaring twenties similar to what happened after nineteen eighteen and
the flu pandemic back then and now we have this
better understanding how how important these relationships are to us.
One of the big upsides that we have in front
of us is that weak ties are definitionally low pressure relationships,
so they're these are not generally people who are going

(18:09):
to be offended that you didn't text them to keep
up during the pandemic. These are not people who you're
turning down zoom invites from. These are people that once
you see them again and once you both confirm you're
still there and still happy to be there, things should
go in those relationships back to largely normal, and I
think that people will be really really happy to see

(18:29):
everybody and perhaps bring with that an understanding of what
all of the people around us mean to our lives.
Not just necessarily are very close friends and people who
are like us in you know, socio economic ways that
we would spend intentional time with, but the people who
work at the grocery store, your burista at the coffee shop,
people who work and exist in ways in our lives

(18:50):
that our culture doesn't always value. I think the understanding
all that we lost when we lost them as part
of our everyday lives could be a step towards revaluing
them in the future and understanding how much people who
performed labor like that and you play roles like that
really matter in a society into ourselves as individuals. Well,
I'm hoping for things to get back to normal quickly

(19:12):
so we can get out to the bars and then
watch football together, you know, as you mentioned at the beginning,
Just hoping for those fun times to return. Amanda Mole,
staff writer at The Atlantic. Thank you very much for
joining us. Thank you for having me. That's it for
this weekend. Be sure to check out The Daily Dive

(19:34):
every Monday through Friday. Join us on social media at
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Leave us a comment, give us a rating, and tell
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Dive and I Heart Radio or subscribe wherever you get
your podcast. This episode of The Daily Dive has been
engineered by Tony Sarantino. I'm Oscar Ramires in Los Angeles

(19:56):
and this was your Daily Dive weekend edition. Her Fa