October 16, 2024 • 25 mins
Documentary filmmaker Nick Quested called up the leader of The Proud Boys and got an invite to tag along to The Insurrection with his cameras. Quested’s eye-witness footage was part of the Congressional January 6th Committee evidence and now part of Jack Smith’s case against Trump. Quested shares his insights and his predictions about what will go down this November.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Peaceful occupation is a tool of protest. I think that
once you come armed, I think that makes you way
less peaceful. I think it puts you into a defensive
posture from the very beginning. I expect to see whole
workers creating pretexts for protests. I expect to see state
legislators and boards of supervisors not certifying elections. I see
(00:20):
state legislators, Republican state legislators proffering alternate states and electors
as well. And I see on top of that multiple lawsuits.
So I would be worried about Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I'm John Cipher and I'm Jurie o'she. I served in
the CIA's Clandestine Service for twenty eight years, living undercover
all around the world.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
And in my thirty three years with the CIA, I
served in Africa, Asia, Europe, in the Middle East.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Although we don't usually look at it this way, we
created conspiracies.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
In our operations. We got people to believe things that
work true.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Now we're investigating the conspiracy theories in the news almost
every day.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Will break them down for you to determine whether they
could be real or whether we're being manipulated.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Welcome to Mission Implausible.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I'd like to welcome Nick Quested.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Nick is a filmmaker, Emmy Award winning OSCAR nominated producer
of documentary films, music videos, and TV commercials. And Nick,
just in a brief side, you produced two incredibly powerful
war documentaries, Restrepo and Corngall, And I'd just like to
say that I've also dealt with al Qaeda in those
(01:33):
same rough isolated mountains in eastern Afghanistan, and so I
know what a great job you did in covering that
particular area along with Sebastian Junger and Tim Haverington.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And that was mostly Tim. That was Tim and Sebastian.
My dealings with al Qaeda were more in southern Jordan
when we made the film Hell on U.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
You're no stranger to bed guys. So incredibly you were
embedded with the Proud Boys and the run up to
the January sixth attack on our democracy, and you testified
to Congress on this, and you have an exciting new
documentary coming out sixty four days that covers all of this.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Who here knows who created this deal in twenty twenty,
and that would be me. The riot was planned well
before the route.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
The threats were coming, and those threats they were everywhere.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
We're going to get a hang each trader. The people
that knew how to really gen these people up were
saying whatever they needed to say to keep this hostility going.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
We're not going to go quietly.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
So maybe we could start by outlining how it was
you ended up in a parking garage for a key
meeting between Proudboys leader and Riki Tario, now serving twenty
two years for seditious conspiracy and Oath Keeper's founder Stuart Rhoads,
now serving eighteen years the night before Trump's infamous Save
(03:01):
America really is they planned the assault on the capital.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
So I'll walk you back a little bit and how
I got to be with them in the first place.
So when the President said stand back and stand by,
I felt that the potential for political violence in America
had just become almost a certainty. At that point, he
named checked a street level militia, and you've been around.
(03:26):
I'd seen the same type of messaging throughout the summer
that I'd seen in many conflicts around the world that
had ended up in civil war. So we'd seen this
conversation about caliphates and a white American homeland, seen Trump
trains that look very similar to victory parades in Iraq,
and you'd seen the use of the iconogously of black
(03:47):
flags and starstone called banners. Right when he said that,
I was like, Oh, this is really going to be
an issue in America. I have a friend who've got
me Tario's number. We'd been making a film about division
in America, so I was like, these guys are obviously
on one side of this equation. At that point, we
were asking questions like what does it mean to be American?
And what do all Americans have in common? Because we
(04:08):
felt that in the political horseshoe, most sides of the
political horseshoe shared similar grievances but had different ideologies and
different policies about how you would deal with those issues.
So ill I got a friend, I got his number.
I've seen him around in a few of the protests,
and I called him and he said, yeah, ah right, sweet,
(04:29):
come down. And I'll just say that to anyone that
makes documentaries is you've got to know. And in your
business too, you've got to call people. If you don't
call them and you just turn up, bad things can happen.
Sebasian and I have made that were many films as
foreign correspondents, so we were coming back to look at
America as foreign correspondents. So I ended up with the
(04:50):
Proud Boys all the way through that period. I almost
didn't go on January fifth, and we were like I
just got pinched. You know, I don't know if this
is worth it. We're not going to get the inter
But then I was like, he's going to make bails,
so he's probably going to be out.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I'm just going to say that Tario was pinched. He
was arrested for vandalism of a black church in d
C and was up on charges for that. This is
before he was outed as a former police informant.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
So we went down and I picked him up and
I drove him away from the DC lockup. We went
and picked up his gear. We went to the Phoenix
Hotel to pick up more of his gear, and then
suddenly I see Stuart Roodes outside. I introduced myself to
Stuarts and I went to park the car and the
next thing I know, we're rushing over to a parking
garage and Stuart and Enrique Ontario are meeting in a
(05:38):
parking garage.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
And Stuart Rose is the head of the Oathkeepers, the
other right wing organization.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Then they were talking about how he wasn't worried that
his phone was going to get hacked because he had
authentication protocols on his phone. But as you guys know,
if you're employing state level resources to anything, it's only
a matter of time or money before it cracks. They
probably had that Quantico or Fort Mead or somewhere, and
(06:06):
they were just pounding calculations into that phone till it broke.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Nikka. I can say what I think they are racist
or extremists or white supremacists or whatever, but you spent
time with them, what do they believe? What do they
believe they're supporting and fighting against.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I think the unifying aspect of the prow Boys was
trumpsm So I was searching for whether there was ideology
here and consistency and depth of belief, and I found
the belief to be generally outside of the leadership group
to be quite shallow. I found that there was more
a sense of camaraderie, of enjoying the company of men.
(06:45):
They like to fight, you know, like some men like
to fight, Like they like to watch fighting. They like
to fight, they like talking about fighting, they like drinking beer,
and a lot of them seemed to have been some British.
They were hooligans at the timeporters. They're not united because
they're all softies. There were. It was absolutely reminiscent of
(07:05):
Hounigan's and instead of replacing it with a football club,
they replaced it with trump Ism. There was a lot
of men that when he dug a little bit deeper,
they were either divorced or were in difficult relationships, so
they enjoyed the non judgmental company of men. And that's
one of the things that we've looked at a lot
is how do men, when they're in precious situations, particularly
(07:27):
in Ristreppo, how did they form the bonds that you
needed to form as a group to survive.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
So you said they're a group of men Enriquie Tario
is airfro Cuban right, and Stuart Rhoades despite his name
is hair Flatino and one of his lieutenants was a
transgender woman. So I was wondering, what's your sense of race?
That often these people are shortened that they're white supremacists.
Did you not find that that was it? One of
(07:55):
their one of their issues.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I didn't think that was the driving factor behind the
Proud Boys. I think there were definitely white supremists, but
it wasn't a driving ideology of the group. They mean,
they throw this digner up, which is like WMP, and
that is obviously they say, oh no, that's the okay symbol,
but they're not. They're using it as white power and
they're trolling journalists, and journalists get very confused because, oh,
(08:19):
they just told me something different, and I was like, well,
they could be lying. You know, it's not necessarily we're
not the FEDS. Guys like, they don't have to tell
the truth. So so there was definitely elements of that,
but it wasn't the driving ideology. Apart from if you
think that Trumpism is a white supremacist ideology, trump Ism
has evolved from national populism into something quite different and
(08:41):
in many ways more sinister.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So you made a comment earlier that the leadership thinks
a little different than the regular people who are a
little more shallow.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I bumped into one guy who support this case was
what's the problems with America? And you know, he basically
got down to is that we really need like a
white Anglo sax in the homeland in America, and he
was from Wheeling, West Virginia, and I was like, but
don't you already have that there, which she was a
bit confused about. So most of their sort of rank
(09:13):
and file I only really got to talk to in rally.
So and also, you know, I have to say I
think that the rank and file was very well infiltraated
by the FBI, Like when you look at the garage scene,
if we're going to talk about spycraft, the guy Kenny
who drove the white truck was a confidential informant. Bettino,
(09:33):
who was one of the leaders, ended up turning state
and terming it became a government witness.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Were personalities important? Is it because a kinnus Atario one
of those guys were so effective at pulling people together?
Or were they just these people naturally had the same
thought process he making.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
No no no. Tarrio is very effective at pulling people together.
He was very effective at messaging, as a scene in
a movie where he talks about how he is trying
to get them to walk in line on January sixth,
and that was very important. He drilled this into them
so yeah, Tario is definitely ultimately responsible for the behavior.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Of the group. We'll be right back in a moment. So, Nick,
as a CIA officer, I dealt with al Qaeda and
ISIS and their rank and file. They have different conspiracy
theories as to motivations, if you will, driven by conspiracy
theories as to why they join. Often that they conflict
with each other. But as an American, I struggled to
(10:29):
understand the conflicting conspiracy theories around events of sixth January.
Just quick run through it. It would started out with
to explain the violence. It became no, no, it wasn't us,
it was Antifa, it was people masquerading agains US. And
then it was yeah, okay, maybe it was us being violent,
(10:51):
but it was the FBI that led us there. We
wouldn't have done it unless the FBI false flag operation
is Tucker Carlson would say. And then it was like, yeah, no,
that didn't work either. No, it wasn't violent at all.
Actually it was we were all being nice to each other.
The police officers invite us in. And now of course
it's these people are martyrs and heroes to a cause.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I mean, there's many conspiracy theories that they espoused to
They were election deniers. They thought that there was a
real that there had been election fraud in multiple jurisdictions.
And I would what I found frightening particularly was there
was this lack of understanding of American civics. They really
didn't understand how government worked. And so I would explain, well,
(11:36):
you know, every election in every state and every precinct,
it's slightly different. And then I would like, so what
about all these senators and judges and congressmen who were
on this ballot and none of them have complained about
that being election fraud? What do you say to that?
And they well, I can't work that out. And then
(11:57):
there was you know, and I was like, there was
a ballance, there's a ballot stuffing and mail boxes, and
you can go all down these things. And then there's
the Crackham legal team that were throwing out racist conspiracy
theories about Lady Shay and her mom and in Georgia,
which was obviously wrong. I went and had to investigate that,
(12:17):
and they said, oh, the counting stopped at one point
thirty because of a broken Pipelet's there are two separate
incidents that got conflainted. They were told to stop by
Gabriel Sterling, and then he said no, we should keep
on going. And then at seven thirteen in a morning,
there was an overflow of a toilet and a urinal
that broke in the floor above, and so they were
(12:38):
paused for a second. But none of the counting ever
actually stopped. But really a lot of their conspiracy theories
were generated online by Q, and I put Q firmly
in the Flint camp, frankly, like he swore the oath
of Q on camera. You know, that's part of the
asymmetrical tactics is to pollute information and create doubt.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
What did you find as their relationship to other extremist groups.
Did they see them as allies or rivals? What does
it mean to I know, obviously you saw these two
leaders talking, but.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, but they were never really friends. They called the
oath Keepers the oath breakers, and the prowd Boys liked
to be at the front and like to fight. The
oath Keepers were older gentlemen with guns. There were more veterans,
I felt in the Oathkeepers than there were in the
Proud Boys, although there were some veterans in the Prowboys,
but a lot of the veterans I talked to in
the prowd boys weren't necessarily combat veterans. They were like bobbits.
(13:36):
They'd never left the base, or they'd been drivers or
mechanics or just working in the back office there, like
they've done a lot of training and they felt this
was the moment to save America with their training, which
was probably twenty years ago.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I know you didn't hang that much with Stuart Rhades,
the head of the oath Keepers, but just talking on
conspiracy theories in Paranoia, I found it fiercely that his son,
Dakota Adams and testimony later said that so the Rhodes
had six kids, and he would make them line up
with their backs to him at ATMs and gas pumps
(14:12):
to look out for assassins. And he would unload the
groceries only with one hand because he wanted to keep
his other hand ready to use a weapon when they
came for him. So this is a guy who clearly
lives in a conspiratorial world. I wasn't able to determine
sort of Enrico Tario his personal view towards conspiracy theories.
(14:36):
I'd like to ask you, but he seems more of
a guy to go along to get along right. He's
arrested for numerous things. He collaborates and cooperates with it
with police and local authorities to get out of going
to prison. He testifies against others, which split the leadership
later of the Proud Boys. How did he view the
(14:58):
world or others around him on the Proud Boy.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Side, I feel that Tarius saw the world as transactional,
so conspiracy theories were useful tools for managing the consciousness
of his troops. And he was really into his T
shirt shop. He would sell Proud Boys merchandise, and Rogerstone
also sold through the same shop, the seventeen seventy six shops,
(15:22):
so you could buy a Rogerstone Did Nothing Wrong t
shirt or all these things. I felt that Enrique sawna
Proud Boys as a hustle. And in the film you
see this guy Alex. Alex says, I never voted, but
I was always down with Trump. I don't believe. I mean,
I don't know whether he voted or not vot. I
don't think that's important really, the fact is that he
(15:42):
was very close to Taria, and between the two them,
they saw the Prowd Boys as an opportunity to address
a demographic like you are the leader of a group
that is revered within MAGA circles. You know, you could
look at the Proud Boys as the tactical branch of
stop the steel, the boots of the ground, the tip
of the spear doing occupying territory. If you want to
(16:04):
win an election in a less developed country, you need
the local territory to be controlled, otherwise you can't control
who votes. And so that's why territory was so important
for the prow Boys as well, like physically controlling territory,
and they controlled the most sacred territory in America for
a period of time. They were rallying on the National
Mile calling for revolution. I don't really know many countries
(16:26):
in the world where you can rally in the most
sacred space of that country and you're not going to
get arrested and call for revolution, like violent revolution. Not
we're going to vote you out, We're going to we're
going to fuck you up. That's you can't do it.
In England, there's no right to protest and no right
to free speech. There's no right to free speech in France,
Italy and Germany have their own legacy of issues. America
(16:48):
is a unique place in the world. It really is
a place where you can live free and pursue happiness.
I don't know where else in the world you can
do that in the same way. There is no agreements
or constitution that is as developed and prescient as the
American Constitution, which starts with we the people. Right. The
(17:09):
constitution in England is an agreement between the barons and
the king that he won't overtax them and then just
take them out. That's a very different scenario than we
the people, and that's what brings all Americans together.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
To me, let me just follow up. Why would they
talk to you? Why would they talk to a foreigner.
They don't trust mainstream media to begin with, for yet
they allowed an Englishman to come in and work closely
with them.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
I'm very charming.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
That's centered. Let's move on to the.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
No. I mean, listen, I think they thought they were
going to win, and they wanted someone like with my
skill set to tell their story. I mean, imagine that
they'd had stormed the Capitol and they'd taken hostages, and
that Trump had walked down the National Mall with a
mob of sixty thousand people behind him. Imagine that. I
think you're looking at the Siege of Mecca like Titan
of Things. I mean, the oath keepers were twelve minutes
(18:03):
away from having It's amazing what you can do with
fifty people and ak forty sevens or n sixteen's or
of our fifties. It's hard to meet those people. If
they're determined to stay, you're going to have to go
room for room. And they're not as well trained as
the FBI swap force obviously, or the marshals or but
it's going to be horrible and a lot of people
(18:23):
would die because I was like, where's the water cannons?
Where's the dogs? For a while, where was the real gas?
They had their little things and they peppaball and they
shot me with a bean bag. But it wasn't like
Venezuela in twenty seventeen. It wasn't you know. The army
started shooting then, and then you really got to make
a decision. If someone falls down from the left of you,
are you going forwards or backwards?
Speaker 3 (18:43):
More of this after a quick break.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
You mentioned Roger Stone before, for example, but did you
find or sense any specific connection to Donald Trump? And
the Mega movement. You think there is coordination there and
how hard did it work.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
It is my understanding that there was a direct connection
between Rogerstone and the President. Not only did he pardon
Rogerstone on the twenty third of December, he met with
him at Trump Durrell on the twenty eighth. He then also,
according to the Committee, spoke to the President on January
fifth from the Willard Hotel.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And so do you think Roger Stone was the connection
to the White House?
Speaker 1 (19:23):
I think there were multiple connections that. According to the
Committee and the White House phone logs, there were calls
between the White House and the Willard and allegedly it
was Stone, Lynn and Bannon who all spoke with the
White House at that point. I don't know if it
was with the President or with Meadows or with someone,
but they definitely someone was chatting to someone on that night.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
The Proud Boys have a pretty fearsome reputation ruthless fighters,
at least that's the reputation they put forward. Nick I
just hit the ask, do you know where the name
Proud Boys comes from? Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah, it comes from a Disney Yes, yeah, it comes
from Aladdin, where they were said I'm proud of my boy.
And this comes from Gavin McGinnis. And Gavin McGinnis is
a outright political commentator and comic, and he looks himself
as a comic and he's got quite he's got banter,
and he's he plays very well to that audience.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And McInnis was founder of Vice Media, right.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
He is the founder of one of the founders of
Vice Media.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Nick, we talked a little bit earlier because you've done
so much work with the military and combat zones, and
you mentioned sort of the differences of how they bond.
You've seen any connections in the beliefs of these people,
and it sounds like with the military, they may have
different beliefs, but they but the reason they're together is
different than someone like the Broad Boys.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
I think that the previous films we've made put us
in a very good position when put into a pressure
situation to keep on shooting. You know, we need I'm
always looking for the point of confrontation, you know, I
want to be to the side with both sides here
and there. I've got the police here and I've got
the rioters here, and I want to be in the
middle so I can see the expressions on both people's faces. Also,
(21:03):
if you don't have anything to do in a kinetic situation,
it becomes scary because do you even know what's going
to happen to you? But if you have a camera
in your hand, you've got a job, you want to
have a job, and then those type of situations because
it distracts them, it occupies that first level of awareness,
which is important.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
So Nick, you know these people when you were their
first hand for the occurrences of sixth January. You were
also part of the investigation or at least testified in
front of Congress in front of the sixth January Committee.
But what's your sense for the possibilities of violent outcomes,
whatever they might be for a next election after November
when we vote in twenty twenty four this year, what's
(21:41):
sort of your sense or you're foreboting for where this
might go. Knowing some of the characters and some of
the forces that have been unleashed.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Based on my experience and based on my contacts right now,
I would expect to see protests in swing states where
it is close and Harris won. So I would be
worried about Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. And I'm particularly worried
about Michigan because Michigan had multiple state capital incursions during
(22:10):
twenty twenty by COVID lockdown, deniers and militias, and they
were like a precursor, as you see to the Georgia
state capital incursion by Stop the Steal and then obviously
January sixth. And occupation is a tool of peaceful occupation
is a tool of protest. And I don't believe I
think that once you come armed, I think that makes
(22:31):
you way less peaceful. I think it puts you into
a defensive posture from the very beginning. I expect to
see whole workers creating pretextes for protests. I expect to
see state legislators and board of supervisors not certifying elections.
I see state legislators, Republican state legislators proffering alternate states
(22:52):
for electors as well. And I see on top of
that multiple lawsuits. And I see influencers again emerging like
LAWA Luma, who are going to coordinate these efforts. I'm
not so concerned about DC. I think DC will be
on lockdown from the election to the inauguration. But I
do worry for particularly for Michigan if it's close and
(23:13):
Harris wins.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Well, Nick, thank you for this starting. It's very timely
and very important, and you were right there and you
saw how it was in twenty twenty and I think
this is going to help people understand twenty twenty four.
So can you just tell us the name of the
movie and when it comes out so people can find it.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
The film is called sixty four Days and you'll be
able to download it initially on our website called sixty
four Days film dot Com, will be on DeMeo as well,
and then just after the election will be available on
all platforms. And we are also screening across America. At
the moment. We have screenings in DC, we have screenings
in all over and if anyone wanted to host a screening,
just contact us on the website. We'd be delighted to
(23:49):
we allowing people to host screenings of any size that
they want. We just like people to see the film
because this film isn't an activist film. This film is
a work of journalism. Everything is double sourced or a
first hand account. This is not an activist film, but
it becomes very polarizing because it's based on ground trees
and half facts and that's not necessarily one Side's the
(24:12):
view of the world at the moment.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
And what just the last thing before we leave, what
are you working on next?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
We're working on a nicer project. We're working on something
we're killing in Bape about how what it takes to
become a champion. We just finished a show about reggaeiton
here like this on Peacock right now, called Reggaeton. And
it's a very tricky world out there for documentaries at
the moment. The Speaking Truth to Power film is pretty
tricky at the moment. Not anyone's picking it up. No
(24:38):
one's bought my film at the moment.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Do you have any conspiracy theories you want them to
look into for future episodes?
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Oh, the cloud seeding, that's a good one. Like hurricane
starts in the Gulf. Yeah, hurricanes start all the time
in the golf guys.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Like someone said, these hurricanes are in the golf are
hitting just Red states? Is that there's something rare? It's like, well,
that's because there's only Red states in the golfers.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yeah, I wonder what this will do to you know,
if Florida is down to a few percentage points like
and you've wiped out the villages and Tampa. That's a
big hit for Trump a Stan down there, but then
don't want mailing villains?
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Yeah, Nick, take you very much much for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
It's a pleasure jents anytime.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'sha, John Cipher,
and Jonathan Stern. The associate producer is Rachel Harner. Mission
Implausible it's a production of honorable mention and abominable pictures
for iHeart Podcasts.
Peaceful occupation is a tool of protest. I think that
once you come armed, I think that makes you way
less peaceful. I think it puts you into a defensive
posture from the very beginning. I expect to see whole
workers creating pretexts for protests. I expect to see state
legislators and boards of supervisors not certifying elections. I see
(00:20):
state legislators, Republican state legislators proffering alternate states and electors
as well. And I see on top of that multiple lawsuits.
So I would be worried about Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I'm John Cipher and I'm Jurie o'she. I served in
the CIA's Clandestine Service for twenty eight years, living undercover
all around the world.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
And in my thirty three years with the CIA, I
served in Africa, Asia, Europe, in the Middle East.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Although we don't usually look at it this way, we
created conspiracies.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
In our operations. We got people to believe things that
work true.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Now we're investigating the conspiracy theories in the news almost
every day.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Will break them down for you to determine whether they
could be real or whether we're being manipulated.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Welcome to Mission Implausible.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I'd like to welcome Nick Quested.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Nick is a filmmaker, Emmy Award winning OSCAR nominated producer
of documentary films, music videos, and TV commercials. And Nick,
just in a brief side, you produced two incredibly powerful
war documentaries, Restrepo and Corngall, And I'd just like to
say that I've also dealt with al Qaeda in those
(01:33):
same rough isolated mountains in eastern Afghanistan, and so I
know what a great job you did in covering that
particular area along with Sebastian Junger and Tim Haverington.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And that was mostly Tim. That was Tim and Sebastian.
My dealings with al Qaeda were more in southern Jordan
when we made the film Hell on U.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
You're no stranger to bed guys. So incredibly you were
embedded with the Proud Boys and the run up to
the January sixth attack on our democracy, and you testified
to Congress on this, and you have an exciting new
documentary coming out sixty four days that covers all of this.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Who here knows who created this deal in twenty twenty,
and that would be me. The riot was planned well
before the route.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
The threats were coming, and those threats they were everywhere.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
We're going to get a hang each trader. The people
that knew how to really gen these people up were
saying whatever they needed to say to keep this hostility going.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
We're not going to go quietly.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
So maybe we could start by outlining how it was
you ended up in a parking garage for a key
meeting between Proudboys leader and Riki Tario, now serving twenty
two years for seditious conspiracy and Oath Keeper's founder Stuart Rhoads,
now serving eighteen years the night before Trump's infamous Save
(03:01):
America really is they planned the assault on the capital.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
So I'll walk you back a little bit and how
I got to be with them in the first place.
So when the President said stand back and stand by,
I felt that the potential for political violence in America
had just become almost a certainty. At that point, he
named checked a street level militia, and you've been around.
(03:26):
I'd seen the same type of messaging throughout the summer
that I'd seen in many conflicts around the world that
had ended up in civil war. So we'd seen this
conversation about caliphates and a white American homeland, seen Trump
trains that look very similar to victory parades in Iraq,
and you'd seen the use of the iconogously of black
(03:47):
flags and starstone called banners. Right when he said that,
I was like, Oh, this is really going to be
an issue in America. I have a friend who've got
me Tario's number. We'd been making a film about division
in America, so I was like, these guys are obviously
on one side of this equation. At that point, we
were asking questions like what does it mean to be American?
And what do all Americans have in common? Because we
(04:08):
felt that in the political horseshoe, most sides of the
political horseshoe shared similar grievances but had different ideologies and
different policies about how you would deal with those issues.
So ill I got a friend, I got his number.
I've seen him around in a few of the protests,
and I called him and he said, yeah, ah right, sweet,
(04:29):
come down. And I'll just say that to anyone that
makes documentaries is you've got to know. And in your
business too, you've got to call people. If you don't
call them and you just turn up, bad things can happen.
Sebasian and I have made that were many films as
foreign correspondents, so we were coming back to look at
America as foreign correspondents. So I ended up with the
(04:50):
Proud Boys all the way through that period. I almost
didn't go on January fifth, and we were like I
just got pinched. You know, I don't know if this
is worth it. We're not going to get the inter
But then I was like, he's going to make bails,
so he's probably going to be out.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I'm just going to say that Tario was pinched. He
was arrested for vandalism of a black church in d
C and was up on charges for that. This is
before he was outed as a former police informant.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
So we went down and I picked him up and
I drove him away from the DC lockup. We went
and picked up his gear. We went to the Phoenix
Hotel to pick up more of his gear, and then
suddenly I see Stuart Roodes outside. I introduced myself to
Stuarts and I went to park the car and the
next thing I know, we're rushing over to a parking
garage and Stuart and Enrique Ontario are meeting in a
(05:38):
parking garage.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
And Stuart Rose is the head of the Oathkeepers, the
other right wing organization.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Then they were talking about how he wasn't worried that
his phone was going to get hacked because he had
authentication protocols on his phone. But as you guys know,
if you're employing state level resources to anything, it's only
a matter of time or money before it cracks. They
probably had that Quantico or Fort Mead or somewhere, and
(06:06):
they were just pounding calculations into that phone till it broke.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Nikka. I can say what I think they are racist
or extremists or white supremacists or whatever, but you spent
time with them, what do they believe? What do they
believe they're supporting and fighting against.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I think the unifying aspect of the prow Boys was
trumpsm So I was searching for whether there was ideology
here and consistency and depth of belief, and I found
the belief to be generally outside of the leadership group
to be quite shallow. I found that there was more
a sense of camaraderie, of enjoying the company of men.
(06:45):
They like to fight, you know, like some men like
to fight, Like they like to watch fighting. They like
to fight, they like talking about fighting, they like drinking beer,
and a lot of them seemed to have been some British.
They were hooligans at the timeporters. They're not united because
they're all softies. There were. It was absolutely reminiscent of
(07:05):
Hounigan's and instead of replacing it with a football club,
they replaced it with trump Ism. There was a lot
of men that when he dug a little bit deeper,
they were either divorced or were in difficult relationships, so
they enjoyed the non judgmental company of men. And that's
one of the things that we've looked at a lot
is how do men, when they're in precious situations, particularly
(07:27):
in Ristreppo, how did they form the bonds that you
needed to form as a group to survive.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
So you said they're a group of men Enriquie Tario
is airfro Cuban right, and Stuart Rhoades despite his name
is hair Flatino and one of his lieutenants was a
transgender woman. So I was wondering, what's your sense of race?
That often these people are shortened that they're white supremacists.
Did you not find that that was it? One of
(07:55):
their one of their issues.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I didn't think that was the driving factor behind the
Proud Boys. I think there were definitely white supremists, but
it wasn't a driving ideology of the group. They mean,
they throw this digner up, which is like WMP, and
that is obviously they say, oh no, that's the okay symbol,
but they're not. They're using it as white power and
they're trolling journalists, and journalists get very confused because, oh,
(08:19):
they just told me something different, and I was like, well,
they could be lying. You know, it's not necessarily we're
not the FEDS. Guys like, they don't have to tell
the truth. So so there was definitely elements of that,
but it wasn't the driving ideology. Apart from if you
think that Trumpism is a white supremacist ideology, trump Ism
has evolved from national populism into something quite different and
(08:41):
in many ways more sinister.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So you made a comment earlier that the leadership thinks
a little different than the regular people who are a
little more shallow.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I bumped into one guy who support this case was
what's the problems with America? And you know, he basically
got down to is that we really need like a
white Anglo sax in the homeland in America, and he
was from Wheeling, West Virginia, and I was like, but
don't you already have that there, which she was a
bit confused about. So most of their sort of rank
(09:13):
and file I only really got to talk to in rally.
So and also, you know, I have to say I
think that the rank and file was very well infiltraated
by the FBI, Like when you look at the garage scene,
if we're going to talk about spycraft, the guy Kenny
who drove the white truck was a confidential informant. Bettino,
(09:33):
who was one of the leaders, ended up turning state
and terming it became a government witness.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Were personalities important? Is it because a kinnus Atario one
of those guys were so effective at pulling people together?
Or were they just these people naturally had the same
thought process he making.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
No no no. Tarrio is very effective at pulling people together.
He was very effective at messaging, as a scene in
a movie where he talks about how he is trying
to get them to walk in line on January sixth,
and that was very important. He drilled this into them
so yeah, Tario is definitely ultimately responsible for the behavior.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Of the group. We'll be right back in a moment. So, Nick,
as a CIA officer, I dealt with al Qaeda and
ISIS and their rank and file. They have different conspiracy
theories as to motivations, if you will, driven by conspiracy
theories as to why they join. Often that they conflict
with each other. But as an American, I struggled to
(10:29):
understand the conflicting conspiracy theories around events of sixth January.
Just quick run through it. It would started out with
to explain the violence. It became no, no, it wasn't us,
it was Antifa, it was people masquerading agains US. And
then it was yeah, okay, maybe it was us being violent,
(10:51):
but it was the FBI that led us there. We
wouldn't have done it unless the FBI false flag operation
is Tucker Carlson would say. And then it was like, yeah, no,
that didn't work either. No, it wasn't violent at all.
Actually it was we were all being nice to each other.
The police officers invite us in. And now of course
it's these people are martyrs and heroes to a cause.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I mean, there's many conspiracy theories that they espoused to
They were election deniers. They thought that there was a
real that there had been election fraud in multiple jurisdictions.
And I would what I found frightening particularly was there
was this lack of understanding of American civics. They really
didn't understand how government worked. And so I would explain, well,
(11:36):
you know, every election in every state and every precinct,
it's slightly different. And then I would like, so what
about all these senators and judges and congressmen who were
on this ballot and none of them have complained about
that being election fraud? What do you say to that?
And they well, I can't work that out. And then
(11:57):
there was you know, and I was like, there was
a ballance, there's a ballot stuffing and mail boxes, and
you can go all down these things. And then there's
the Crackham legal team that were throwing out racist conspiracy
theories about Lady Shay and her mom and in Georgia,
which was obviously wrong. I went and had to investigate that,
(12:17):
and they said, oh, the counting stopped at one point
thirty because of a broken Pipelet's there are two separate
incidents that got conflainted. They were told to stop by
Gabriel Sterling, and then he said no, we should keep
on going. And then at seven thirteen in a morning,
there was an overflow of a toilet and a urinal
that broke in the floor above, and so they were
(12:38):
paused for a second. But none of the counting ever
actually stopped. But really a lot of their conspiracy theories
were generated online by Q, and I put Q firmly
in the Flint camp, frankly, like he swore the oath
of Q on camera. You know, that's part of the
asymmetrical tactics is to pollute information and create doubt.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
What did you find as their relationship to other extremist groups.
Did they see them as allies or rivals? What does
it mean to I know, obviously you saw these two
leaders talking, but.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, but they were never really friends. They called the
oath Keepers the oath breakers, and the prowd Boys liked
to be at the front and like to fight. The
oath Keepers were older gentlemen with guns. There were more veterans,
I felt in the Oathkeepers than there were in the
Proud Boys, although there were some veterans in the Prowboys,
but a lot of the veterans I talked to in
the prowd boys weren't necessarily combat veterans. They were like bobbits.
(13:36):
They'd never left the base, or they'd been drivers or
mechanics or just working in the back office there, like
they've done a lot of training and they felt this
was the moment to save America with their training, which
was probably twenty years ago.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I know you didn't hang that much with Stuart Rhades,
the head of the oath Keepers, but just talking on
conspiracy theories in Paranoia, I found it fiercely that his son,
Dakota Adams and testimony later said that so the Rhodes
had six kids, and he would make them line up
with their backs to him at ATMs and gas pumps
(14:12):
to look out for assassins. And he would unload the
groceries only with one hand because he wanted to keep
his other hand ready to use a weapon when they
came for him. So this is a guy who clearly
lives in a conspiratorial world. I wasn't able to determine
sort of Enrico Tario his personal view towards conspiracy theories.
(14:36):
I'd like to ask you, but he seems more of
a guy to go along to get along right. He's
arrested for numerous things. He collaborates and cooperates with it
with police and local authorities to get out of going
to prison. He testifies against others, which split the leadership
later of the Proud Boys. How did he view the
(14:58):
world or others around him on the Proud Boy.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Side, I feel that Tarius saw the world as transactional,
so conspiracy theories were useful tools for managing the consciousness
of his troops. And he was really into his T
shirt shop. He would sell Proud Boys merchandise, and Rogerstone
also sold through the same shop, the seventeen seventy six shops,
(15:22):
so you could buy a Rogerstone Did Nothing Wrong t
shirt or all these things. I felt that Enrique sawna
Proud Boys as a hustle. And in the film you
see this guy Alex. Alex says, I never voted, but
I was always down with Trump. I don't believe. I mean,
I don't know whether he voted or not vot. I
don't think that's important really, the fact is that he
(15:42):
was very close to Taria, and between the two them,
they saw the Prowd Boys as an opportunity to address
a demographic like you are the leader of a group
that is revered within MAGA circles. You know, you could
look at the Proud Boys as the tactical branch of
stop the steel, the boots of the ground, the tip
of the spear doing occupying territory. If you want to
(16:04):
win an election in a less developed country, you need
the local territory to be controlled, otherwise you can't control
who votes. And so that's why territory was so important
for the prow Boys as well, like physically controlling territory,
and they controlled the most sacred territory in America for
a period of time. They were rallying on the National
Mile calling for revolution. I don't really know many countries
(16:26):
in the world where you can rally in the most
sacred space of that country and you're not going to
get arrested and call for revolution, like violent revolution. Not
we're going to vote you out, We're going to we're
going to fuck you up. That's you can't do it.
In England, there's no right to protest and no right
to free speech. There's no right to free speech in France,
Italy and Germany have their own legacy of issues. America
(16:48):
is a unique place in the world. It really is
a place where you can live free and pursue happiness.
I don't know where else in the world you can
do that in the same way. There is no agreements
or constitution that is as developed and prescient as the
American Constitution, which starts with we the people. Right. The
(17:09):
constitution in England is an agreement between the barons and
the king that he won't overtax them and then just
take them out. That's a very different scenario than we
the people, and that's what brings all Americans together.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
To me, let me just follow up. Why would they
talk to you? Why would they talk to a foreigner.
They don't trust mainstream media to begin with, for yet
they allowed an Englishman to come in and work closely
with them.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
I'm very charming.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
That's centered. Let's move on to the.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
No. I mean, listen, I think they thought they were
going to win, and they wanted someone like with my
skill set to tell their story. I mean, imagine that
they'd had stormed the Capitol and they'd taken hostages, and
that Trump had walked down the National Mall with a
mob of sixty thousand people behind him. Imagine that. I
think you're looking at the Siege of Mecca like Titan
of Things. I mean, the oath keepers were twelve minutes
(18:03):
away from having It's amazing what you can do with
fifty people and ak forty sevens or n sixteen's or
of our fifties. It's hard to meet those people. If
they're determined to stay, you're going to have to go
room for room. And they're not as well trained as
the FBI swap force obviously, or the marshals or but
it's going to be horrible and a lot of people
(18:23):
would die because I was like, where's the water cannons?
Where's the dogs? For a while, where was the real gas?
They had their little things and they peppaball and they
shot me with a bean bag. But it wasn't like
Venezuela in twenty seventeen. It wasn't you know. The army
started shooting then, and then you really got to make
a decision. If someone falls down from the left of you,
are you going forwards or backwards?
Speaker 3 (18:43):
More of this after a quick break.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
You mentioned Roger Stone before, for example, but did you
find or sense any specific connection to Donald Trump? And
the Mega movement. You think there is coordination there and
how hard did it work.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
It is my understanding that there was a direct connection
between Rogerstone and the President. Not only did he pardon
Rogerstone on the twenty third of December, he met with
him at Trump Durrell on the twenty eighth. He then also,
according to the Committee, spoke to the President on January
fifth from the Willard Hotel.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And so do you think Roger Stone was the connection
to the White House?
Speaker 1 (19:23):
I think there were multiple connections that. According to the
Committee and the White House phone logs, there were calls
between the White House and the Willard and allegedly it
was Stone, Lynn and Bannon who all spoke with the
White House at that point. I don't know if it
was with the President or with Meadows or with someone,
but they definitely someone was chatting to someone on that night.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
The Proud Boys have a pretty fearsome reputation ruthless fighters,
at least that's the reputation they put forward. Nick I
just hit the ask, do you know where the name
Proud Boys comes from? Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah, it comes from a Disney Yes, yeah, it comes
from Aladdin, where they were said I'm proud of my boy.
And this comes from Gavin McGinnis. And Gavin McGinnis is
a outright political commentator and comic, and he looks himself
as a comic and he's got quite he's got banter,
and he's he plays very well to that audience.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And McInnis was founder of Vice Media, right.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
He is the founder of one of the founders of
Vice Media.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Nick, we talked a little bit earlier because you've done
so much work with the military and combat zones, and
you mentioned sort of the differences of how they bond.
You've seen any connections in the beliefs of these people,
and it sounds like with the military, they may have
different beliefs, but they but the reason they're together is
different than someone like the Broad Boys.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
I think that the previous films we've made put us
in a very good position when put into a pressure
situation to keep on shooting. You know, we need I'm
always looking for the point of confrontation, you know, I
want to be to the side with both sides here
and there. I've got the police here and I've got
the rioters here, and I want to be in the
middle so I can see the expressions on both people's faces. Also,
(21:03):
if you don't have anything to do in a kinetic situation,
it becomes scary because do you even know what's going
to happen to you? But if you have a camera
in your hand, you've got a job, you want to
have a job, and then those type of situations because
it distracts them, it occupies that first level of awareness,
which is important.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
So Nick, you know these people when you were their
first hand for the occurrences of sixth January. You were
also part of the investigation or at least testified in
front of Congress in front of the sixth January Committee.
But what's your sense for the possibilities of violent outcomes,
whatever they might be for a next election after November
when we vote in twenty twenty four this year, what's
(21:41):
sort of your sense or you're foreboting for where this
might go. Knowing some of the characters and some of
the forces that have been unleashed.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Based on my experience and based on my contacts right now,
I would expect to see protests in swing states where
it is close and Harris won. So I would be
worried about Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. And I'm particularly worried
about Michigan because Michigan had multiple state capital incursions during
(22:10):
twenty twenty by COVID lockdown, deniers and militias, and they
were like a precursor, as you see to the Georgia
state capital incursion by Stop the Steal and then obviously
January sixth. And occupation is a tool of peaceful occupation
is a tool of protest. And I don't believe I
think that once you come armed, I think that makes
(22:31):
you way less peaceful. I think it puts you into
a defensive posture from the very beginning. I expect to
see whole workers creating pretextes for protests. I expect to
see state legislators and board of supervisors not certifying elections.
I see state legislators, Republican state legislators proffering alternate states
(22:52):
for electors as well. And I see on top of
that multiple lawsuits. And I see influencers again emerging like
LAWA Luma, who are going to coordinate these efforts. I'm
not so concerned about DC. I think DC will be
on lockdown from the election to the inauguration. But I
do worry for particularly for Michigan if it's close and
(23:13):
Harris wins.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Well, Nick, thank you for this starting. It's very timely
and very important, and you were right there and you
saw how it was in twenty twenty and I think
this is going to help people understand twenty twenty four.
So can you just tell us the name of the
movie and when it comes out so people can find it.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
The film is called sixty four Days and you'll be
able to download it initially on our website called sixty
four Days film dot Com, will be on DeMeo as well,
and then just after the election will be available on
all platforms. And we are also screening across America. At
the moment. We have screenings in DC, we have screenings
in all over and if anyone wanted to host a screening,
just contact us on the website. We'd be delighted to
(23:49):
we allowing people to host screenings of any size that
they want. We just like people to see the film
because this film isn't an activist film. This film is
a work of journalism. Everything is double sourced or a
first hand account. This is not an activist film, but
it becomes very polarizing because it's based on ground trees
and half facts and that's not necessarily one Side's the
(24:12):
view of the world at the moment.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
And what just the last thing before we leave, what
are you working on next?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
We're working on a nicer project. We're working on something
we're killing in Bape about how what it takes to
become a champion. We just finished a show about reggaeiton
here like this on Peacock right now, called Reggaeton. And
it's a very tricky world out there for documentaries at
the moment. The Speaking Truth to Power film is pretty
tricky at the moment. Not anyone's picking it up. No
(24:38):
one's bought my film at the moment.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Do you have any conspiracy theories you want them to
look into for future episodes?
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Oh, the cloud seeding, that's a good one. Like hurricane
starts in the Gulf. Yeah, hurricanes start all the time
in the golf guys.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Like someone said, these hurricanes are in the golf are
hitting just Red states? Is that there's something rare? It's like, well,
that's because there's only Red states in the golfers.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yeah, I wonder what this will do to you know,
if Florida is down to a few percentage points like
and you've wiped out the villages and Tampa. That's a
big hit for Trump a Stan down there, but then
don't want mailing villains?
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Yeah, Nick, take you very much much for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
It's a pleasure jents anytime.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'sha, John Cipher,
and Jonathan Stern. The associate producer is Rachel Harner. Mission
Implausible it's a production of honorable mention and abominable pictures
for iHeart Podcasts.
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