May 4, 2023 • 46 mins
Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin has covered Some of the most notorious figures in U.S. history. Now, in his book “Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of RIght-Wing Extremism,” Toobin takes on the man behind the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Toobin puts the incident into historical context by tracing the roots of McVeigh’s actions from the standoff at Ruby Ridge, to President Clinton’s ban on assault weapons, and all the way through the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. In this episode of Next Question, he tells Katie, “That's why I wrote Homegrown to show that [McVeigh] was not an aberration. And that his legacy lives on in both people and ideas that are persistent to this day.”
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, everyone, I'm Katy Kuric, and this is next question
I'll never forget. The morning of April nineteenth, nineteen ninety five,
we had just wrapped up the Today Show when we
got word that the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City
had been bombed. We immediately started covering the story.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Good morning, You're looking at a live picture of what's
left of the federal building in Oklahoma City, the site
of the worst terrorist bombing to ever hit the United States.
As a result of the blast, at least thirty six
people are dead, hundreds are injured, one hundreds still unaccounted for. Today, Thursday,
April the twentieth, nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
From NBC News. This is a special.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Edition of The building was in shambles, and I remember
my heart sinking when I heard there was a daycare
center on the premises.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And also to help this community recover. Katie, Good morning, Brian,
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
You know it's so horrifying to watch these pictures from Afar.
I can only imagine how difficult it is to be
there up close. We're going to be getting the very
latest from the White House this morning. We'll be hearing
from several survivors, including I'll also never forget the photo
of the firefighter carrying a bloodied, battered, yes deceased little girl.
(01:27):
She was just a toddler, one of nineteen kids who
were killed in the blast. I also actually went to
Oklahoma City and remember a makeshift memorial Teddy bears flowers
all covering a chain link fence. For days, weeks, even months,
(01:49):
we continue to cover the story because at the time
it was considered one of the deadliest acts on US
soil in history. But that's not what we thought at first.
In this half hour, we're going to be hearing from
a couple of experts on terrorism, both of whom say
the US government is not keeping up with the threat
posed by radical movements, and then later in the hour,
(02:09):
some of the heroes. So when I heard that Jeffrey
Tubin had written a new book called Homegrown, all about
Timothy McVeagh and the rise of right wing extremism, I
was anxious to talk to him. Jeffrey Tubin is a
terrific writer, and because he's a lawyer, he often focuses
on major cases. He's written nine books, everything from OJ
(02:33):
to Patricia Hurst. I was anxious to talk to him
to find out what has happened in the years since.
But we began our conversation with the discussion of who
people thought initially were responsible for the bomby, and those
were Middle Eastern extremists. I asked him why, and that's
(02:54):
how our conversation began.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Well, to answer that question, I give you two explanations.
One which is the more I guess the fairer one
is it had been a little more than two years
since the First World Trade Center bombing, and Ramsey Yusef,
the mastermind, had just been arrested in February of nineteen
ninety five, just you know, a little more than two
(03:21):
months before the Oklahoma City bombing, So the issue of
Islamic terrorism was very much in the mix. So that
is to me a kind of reasonable reason to at
least raise the possibility. The more sinister and disturbing explanation
is that it was a assumption that Americans couldn't do this,
(03:49):
and that this is just something Americans do not do,
and that was pernicious and wrong.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Why do you think the so called experts were in
such denial at the time that an American could do this?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Well, because I think this is a continuing pattern in
American life, and it is something that has gone on
with the Oklahoma City bombing, even after it's been convincingly
proved that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols acted alone. There
is a political interest, especially on the American right, in
the right wing, to say that we don't do this,
(04:29):
that these kinds of acts are not us, and the
desire to push the responsibility onto Islamic terrorists as opposed
to the right wing Americans who did it. It's a
political act. I mean, it is an attempt to steer
responsibility away from political, if not allies, people who are
(04:53):
at least somewhat sympathetic to you. So it is a
bad thing that we tried to blame foreigners for acts
that very clearly are entirely native grown.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Your book is so well written and actually thrilling to
read in terms of the suspense and everything that transpired
before and after Oklahoma City. I'm curious why you decided
to write about this. What caught your eye or your
attension about Oklahoma City.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Well, sometimes when I've had book subjects, it's just sort
of evolved. This book arose from something very specific in
October of twenty twenty, the FBI arrested a number of
people in the conspiracy to kidnap Governor Whitmer of Michigan.
(05:48):
I started looking into that, and it became very clear
almost from the start that most of the perpetrators were
involved with the Michigan Militia. I had covered the McVeigh
in Nichols trials in nineteen ninety seven. I didn't go
to Oklahoma City when it was still you know, in ruins,
but I did cover the trial. So I knew the
(06:08):
facts and in a more detailed way than I know
most stories from that long ago. And I knew that
Terry Nichols and his brother James had been affiliated with
the Michigan militia, and so I thought to my said,
I know these people, I know what they believe and
any so I started working, you know, trying to figure
(06:29):
out what was going on there. It was only right
after the election January sixth, that, of course, January sixth happened,
and it was quite clear to me that the people
who were the co conspirators in the Whitmer kidnapping attempt
and the January sixth people were very similar. That in
(06:50):
turn reminded me that they were like McVeigh and Nichols.
So that story that the connection between McVeigh and Nichols
and what came you know, just recently, was really what
prompted me to write the book. And I found, much
to my surprise and delight, that there was this unbelievable
(07:14):
source of information at the Brisco Center at the University
of Texas that no one, almost no one had ever
looked at.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Jeff talk about this treasure trove of files donated by
mcveigh's lead attorney, a man I interviewed many, many times
because he did love the camera to the University of Texas.
So first of all, why did he donate them? And
how helpful were they in writing this book?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You know, Katie, I have spent my entire career covering
the law and often covering trials in the aftermath of trials,
and it was the ultimate dream come true to find
this archive. Stephen Jones was the lead attorney for Timothy McVeigh.
He assembled, at government expense and in enormous team of lawyers,
(08:01):
like a dozen lawyers investigators. They traveled all over the world,
and they interviewed their client multiple times, and as a result,
every time one of them interviewed their client, they would
write a memo about what McVeigh said and then send
it around to everyone. What Stephen Jones did, which I
(08:22):
had no idea about until I started looking into this,
is he donated everything, every scrap of paper in connection
with the McVeigh case to the Brisco Center at the
University of Texas. Now, if there are any lawyers listening,
the first question anybody says is, how can a lawyer
do this? What about attorney client privilege? What about client confidences?
(08:48):
What a client tells his lawyer is protected forever, and
that is true even if the client dies, as Timothy
McVeigh was executed in two thousand and one. How could
Jones have done this? Well, that's a question that I
put to him, and it's a question he's addressed in
various forms. And his view is that McVeigh, by attacking
(09:15):
Jones later after his conviction, effectively waived the attorney client privilege.
I don't think that's true. I don't think it's accurate.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
But who would sue Jones anyway?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Well, that was the thing and fairness to Stephen Jones.
Another thing he has said is he realizes how important
this case was. But the answer to your question is,
I don't think he had the right to give this
stuff away. I don't think it was right. I thought
he was subject to discipline from the Bar Association. Hasn't happened.
But I don't think this is what a proper behavior
(09:52):
for a lawyer. Just but it's not my problem. But exactly,
I mean, that's why.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Are you the first author that really had, you know,
comb through these files. Because other people have written about
Timothy McVeigh.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I'm not the first person to have looked at any
of it. I don't know that it's ever been cited before.
I'm certainly the first person to look at it in detail,
and it's been there since the early two thousands, but
almost no one has looked at it as far as
I was aware.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Let's go back to those days, Jeff, when you were
covering the McVeigh and Nichols trials in nineteen ninety seven,
you write that you quote failed to understand, much less
explain mcveigh's place in the broader slipstream of American history.
With the benefit of hindsight now and a re examination
of everything that happened before and after the Oklahoma City bombing.
(10:50):
How have you come to understand Timothy mcveay differently? You
must feel at this point you know him pretty intimately.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
I do. I do, and I do feel that the
picture of him that I and others presented it wasn't
exactly inaccurate, but it was very much incomplete. The picture
that you got of Timothy McVeigh from my work, and
I think for most coverage in the mid nineties, was
(11:21):
of a lone eccentric, a lone wolf, someone who was
fueled by his own idiosyncratic grievances to do these terrible acts.
And what the documents that I found at the Brisco
Center and all of my reporting proved to me was
(11:43):
that's wrong is that Timothy mcveay was part of a movement.
A phrase you to this day often here about McVeigh
is that he was anti government. That's wrong. He was
not anti government. He was not an anarchist. He was
anti the government in power then Bill Clinton's government. He
(12:05):
was a right wing extremist. He was not an anarchist.
He was part of the movement of Newt Gingrich. He
was part of Rush Limbaugh's Dittohead audience. One of the
things he talked about with his lawyers often is that
as he went for these very long drives around the country,
whether he was going from his home near Buffalo, to
(12:27):
visiting Nichols in Michigan, to visiting his friend in Arizona,
to visiting the scene of Waco, or his sister in Florida,
these incredibly long drives, he was always listening to Rush Limbaugh.
I mean, he was part of the right wing movement
of the nineteen nineties. And one haunting thing he said
to his lawyers was, I knew there was an army
(12:50):
out there, an army out there of people like me,
but I never found it. And he didn't because he
didn't have the tools and just to get yet to
one of the larger points of the book, which is
the difference between McVeigh and January sixth, is the Internet
and social media. Because the people who wanted to kidnap
(13:12):
Governor Whitmer, they could find each other on Facebook, private chats.
If you look at the guy who shot up the walmart,
the guy who shot up the grocery store in Buffalo.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
The Tree of Life, the Tree of.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Life guy in Pittsburgh, all of them were radicalized online
and McVeigh didn't have that, and he didn't have the
opportunity to find others even though he was looking.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
When we come back, how the assault weapons band implemented
in nineteen ninety four may have pushed Timothy McVeigh over
the edge. If you want to get smarter every morning
with a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on
health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our
daily news wake up call by going to Katiecuric dot com.
(14:11):
And we're back. Tell us a little bit about Timothy
mcvay's personality because it was so long ago, and of
course his picture and his photograph loom large in my mind.
But you describe him, I think as a modern day
in cell in some ways. But tell us a little
(14:31):
bit more about him as a person.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Well, let's start with where he grew up outside Buffalo.
His father worked at a GM plant that made mostly
air conditioners for thirty years. His grandfather worked at the
same GM plant for thirty years. There was a stability
in that community that by the time tim was growing
(14:56):
up was gone. So this sense of economic location was
a big part of it. Also, his parents had a
unhappy marriage. And here here's where you know a lot
of people's parents have unhappy marriages, but here there's a
particularly distinctive fact that to me always seemed highly relevant.
(15:19):
In the family, there were two daughters and one son,
and McVeigh was in the middle. The mother kept moving
out during his teenage years, and every time she moved away,
she took the two daughters, but not tim And it
always seemed to me like a kind of Sophie's choice
situation where your mother doesn't pick you, and that I
(15:42):
think had a psychological impact on him, and the way
he talked about his mother with tremendous bitterness, that she
was a drunk and a slut, and who knows when
any of that was true, but that anger against women
came through in his later life. After high school, he
went to a business college for a while, didn't do
(16:04):
well there. He enlisted in the army. He was a
very good soldier, a very effective soldier, won a bronze
star in the First Gulf War. But when he came back,
he tried out for the Green Berets for special Forces,
and he bombed out of the test almost immediately, and
so in nineteen ninety one ninety two, that was when
(16:28):
his life sort of fell apart because he wasn't in
the military, he couldn't make a connection with a woman,
he had no financial prospects. There was nothing for him
in Buffalo, and that's when he turned to the political extremism.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
A lot of depictions of McVeigh portray him as sort
of a freakish outsider, but you make the point that
his views were very much aligned was sort of mainstream
Republican doctrine at the time.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Right, That's right. I mean, it's important to remain sort
of what was going on in American politics at that point.
In nineteen ninety four, Nut Gingrich led America led the
Republicans with the Contract with America to a huge victory
in the midterm elections, where they retook the House, they
(17:18):
retook the Senate, and Bill Clinton was almost a marginal
figure in the lead up to the ninety four elections.
One of the ways Bill Clinton wanted to restore some
sort of political success was in September of nineteen ninety four,
he succeeded in getting Congress to pass the assault weapons
(17:40):
ban over furious Republican opposition. That was the act that
convinced McVeigh to conduct the bombing you know, I think
many people may remember that McVeigh was anguished and very
angry about the situation in Waco when the FBI raided
the Branch Davidian compound. Seventies six people were killed, and
(18:01):
that's true, But people forget how angry he was about
the assault weapons ban, which was a very conventional Republican view. Now,
obviously most Republicans did not engage in terrorism, but his
views were an exaggerated version of very conventional Republican views
(18:23):
of that era.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Let's listen to Bill Clinton as he's signing the assault
weapons ban on September thirteenth, nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
This bill makes it illegal for juveniles to own handguns,
and yes, without eroding the rights of sportsmen and women
in this country, we will finally ban these assault weapons
from our street that have no purpose other than to kill.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Gosh, it could be yesterday. But when you see mcveigh's reaction,
and you see mcveigh's obsession with gun rights in the
Second Amendment, it is one of the clearest connections between
McVeigh and January sixth, twenty twenty one, that the fixation
of gun rights on the right is so intense and
(19:13):
so powerful and really bigger than any other issue, Bigger
than abortion, bigger than taxes. That's what the modern right
wing cares about, and it's what McVeigh cared about.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I remember hearing Chris Murphy of Connecticut, though, talking about
how guns have become a proxy for so much more
than just Second Amendment rights.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
I couldn't agree more, which makes it all the more
important to people, because if you are saying to someone,
I want to eliminate your right to buy an AR fifteen,
you're not just talking about AR fifteen's You're talking about
an entire worldview. It becomes an existential threat to you
(19:57):
as a person, taking away your salt weapon. And that's
how McVeigh saw it, and that's how a lot of
people see it today.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
You talk about Timothy mcvey's personality, but what about Terry Nichols,
He helped him build the bomb?
Speaker 5 (20:12):
Right?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
How did those two hook up? And you have Mike
Fortier as well.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
The three of them met on the first day of
basic training when they all enlisted in the army in
nineteen eighty eight, But they were three very different figures
with some aspects in common. McVeigh was from outside Buffalo,
a land of industrial decline. Terry Nichols was from the
Thumb of Michigan, an area of agricultural decline. His family
(20:43):
were small farmers who just couldn't make it anymore, and
so in that respect, their lives were very parallel. Mike
Fortier was from a grim town called Kingman, Arizona, and
all he wanted to do was get high and was
different from the two of them, and was not actively
involved in the conspiracy. He knew about it, but he
(21:05):
did not participate in it. But Nichols is a very
different personality than McVeigh. McVeigh was an evil person. He
was also highly intelligent, effective, organized, resourceful, and really smart
in certain ways. Nichols was a screw up from day
(21:29):
one whose life cascaded from one failure to the next.
You know, he bombed out of his attempt to go
to college. He never really got a job. I mean,
he left to his own devices. Would never, I think,
have conducted the Oklahoma City bombing on his own, but
led by McVeigh, did participate in the conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Mike Fortier ended up basically cooperating with the government.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
He became the star witness for the government in its
case against McVeigh, and at one point they drove across
the country together and McVeigh took him to Oklahoma City
and said, look, this is where I'm going to set
off the bomb. The horror of Mike Fortyer's story is
that if he had gotten off his ass and made
(22:21):
one phone call to the FBI and said stop this guy,
because he's really going to do it, he could have
saved dozens and dozens of lives.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I'm curious how mcveigh's and Nichol's convictions galvanized the right wing.
He had a hard time, and of course he wasn't
a very charismatic person who could recruit other people. But
what impact did the trial and the conviction have on
this growing movement of right wing extremists in this country?
Speaker 3 (22:56):
A tremendous effort to distance McVeigh from the movement. There
was a full congressional investigation in the later nineties led
by a congressman from from California and Dana Robacher, who
met I won't say manufactured, but used really bogus evidence
(23:19):
to suggest that Terry Nichols was really in league with
Islamic terrorists. It was, it was, It was ridiculous. But
I think it's it's it was part of the effort
that the right way on the right wing to say, well,
he really wasn't one of us.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Do you think anyone else was involved?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
I don't. I you know, this is something I took
very seriously. Now on the left, Interestingly, just as there's
been an attempt on the right to distance McVeigh from
the right wing movement, there's been an attempt on the
left to associate McVeigh with the broader right wing movement
and to suggest that there were lots of people who
wanted to blow up the MURV building. There is absolutely
(24:02):
no evidence that I've seen that anyone was involved in
this bombing except McVeigh, Nichols, and Fortier in the sense
that he knew about it, even if he didn't participate.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
You interviewed President Clinton for your book, and he told
you that he was almost immediately convinced that this was
homegrown terrorism.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
This to me, was the most interesting reporting experience I
had when I was working on Homegrown, just because of
the order you do reporting, you know, you never know
exactly how it's going to unfold. I had interviewed several
people who were in the White House on April nineteenth,
nineteen ninety five, and as you pointed out, a lot
of people on television were saying these were Islamic terrorists,
(24:47):
like the first World Trade Center bombing, and these were
people who were in the Oval Office with Clinton at
the time. And Clinton, of course didn't say this publicly.
He didn't want to prejudge the investigation. But he said
to them, this was not foreign, this was homegrown. These
were the militias. I know these people. And so when
(25:08):
I went to interview Clinton after talking to these other people,
I said to him, well, how did you know that
it was domestic when everybody was saying that it was foreign.
And he proceeded to tell me, you know, I knew
these people from Arkansas. And then he started reciting chapter
and verse of right wing extremism, including some very violent,
(25:33):
deadly stuff that he had dealt with in Arkansas when
he was governor. And meanwhile, I'm interviewing Bill Clinton in
twenty twenty two, and he is telling me about day
by day events in nineteen eighty three, eighty fourty five.
I went backed and checked it out. His memory was impeccable.
So it was fascinating to me that Clinton understood the anger,
(25:55):
the passion, the violence that was so evident in THEIA movement,
and he saw in the Oklahoma City bombing before the
experts did who was really behind it.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Fascinating and I sometimes think that the government doesn't get
enough credit. I mean, the way they handled the aftermath
of Oklahoma City, the fact that he was arrested Timothy
McVeigh what ninety minutes after the bombing by a very
alert state trooper who noticed his license plate was missing.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Right, there's a lot, there's some.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Was serendipitous and someone was just really good investigation.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
I mean, you know, the FBI gets criticized for a lot,
and for good reason. They did a superlative job, and
Trooper Charlie Hager also did something amazing. But just to
remind people how this all unfolded, the bombing took place
at nine o two am on April nineteenth. It was
(26:53):
this horrible explosion and then two blocks away, something came
through the air and nearly crushed someone who was in
a Ford Fiesta right there. It was a truck axle,
and everybody could tell this came from very far away.
The axle had a ven number, a vehicle identification number
(27:16):
on it. It's traced to Rider Truck Rental. Rider says
that truck was rented in Junction City, Kansas by a
guy named Robert Kling three days earlier. FBI agents go,
they fan out over Junction City, Kansas. They go to
all the motels. They go to the Dreamland Motel, this
(27:36):
kind of sleazy motel right by the highway, and they
asked the proprietor and they say, has anybody been here
with a rider truck? And they say, yeah, a guy
parked a rider truck three days ago and he stayed here.
What was his name, Timothy McVeigh. And then they found
that that person had ordered Chinese food from the Hunam
(27:59):
restaurant on and he had ordered food from Room twenty
five because they had the phone records under the name
Robert Kling. So that's how they discovered that Robert Kling
and Timothy McVeigh were the same person. He used Timothy
McVeigh to rent the hotel room.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
What a dope? Maybe a credit carding, No, no.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
It was all cash. He was careless, he made a mistake.
And then the state the state trooper again the crazy coincidences.
Charlie Hanger, who I have to say, is like the
coolest guy in the world was. I interviewed him ninety
minutes after the bombing. He is he is pissed because
he wants to be sent to Oklahoma City where all
(28:42):
the action is, but they say, no, continue your regular patrols.
He sees a broken down old Mercury marquis driving north
away from Oklahoma City with no license plate. He pulls
the car over and as the guy gets out of
the car, the driver of this car he as his
jacket opens that he's carrying a gun, and he spins
(29:06):
him around and puts him against the car. You to
frisk him, and McVeigh says to him, you know that
gun's loaded, and Charlie Hager puts the gun to mcveay's
the base of mcveig's skull and says, so is mine,
which is like the badass line of all time. I
just love that. Anyway, he brings him in because in
(29:28):
Oklahoma at that time, to carry an unregistered gun is
a crime. Let's fast forward to today, when the right
wing government of Oklahoma has ended that requirement. If Tim
McVeagh had been arrested today, Charlie Hager couldn't have arrested him.
All he could have done is give him a ticket
for having anno license plate, because it's legal now to
(29:52):
carry an unlicensed gun in Oklahoma. They put mcveigh's name
in the database of people arrested, and they discover we
have this guy in custody in Oklahoma. They call the
courthouse in the jail and they say, do you have
a guy named Timothy McVeigh there. Yeah, we're about to
(30:12):
release him because it was such minor charges, and they
start screaming, don't release him, don't release him, and they
send a helicopter and that's how they get him.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
I know the book has been often for a scripted series,
and it's pretty much writing myself right there.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
So I hope so.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
From my lips to God's ear when we come back.
How Bill Clinton's reaction to what happened in Oklahoma City
resurrected his presidency. Let's talk about the remarks Bill Clinton
(30:54):
delivered at the memorial service at the Oklahoma Fairgrounds. You
describe it as one of the most consequential of his presidency.
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 6 (31:04):
You have lost too much, but you have not lost everything,
and you have certainly not lost America, or we will
stand with you, or as many.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Tomorrows as it takes.
Speaker 6 (31:27):
To all my fellow Americans.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Beyond this hall, I say, one thing we owe those
who have sacrificed is the duty to purge ourselves of
the dark forces which gave rise to this evil.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Why was it such an important address?
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Well, you know, the national feeling of horror and outrage
was was really profound. I mean, remember, this is nineteen
ninety five, it's before nine to eleven. There has really
never been an event like this in modern American history.
And Clinton, who you know, he wasn't a senator, he
(32:13):
was a governor. So he had done a lot of funerals,
he had comforted people. And you know, the thing that
many people to this day remember about Bill Clinton is
that he felt other people's pain. And in his speech
at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds, you know, he really captured
that feeling of national sorrow and national purpose where he
(32:37):
really rose to the occasion. And after losing control of
the House and Senate in the previous midterms November, this
is only five months later, this was really the beginning
of Bill Clinton's political resurrection, which continued into his reelection.
The following year.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
You contrast Bill Clinton's handling of the bombings aftermath with
that of Merrick Garlands. Let's listen to now ag Garland
talking about his role during his confirmation hearings.
Speaker 7 (33:11):
From nineteen ninety five to nineteen ninety seven. I supervised
the prosecution of the perpetrators of the bombing of the
Oklahoma City Federal Building, who sought to spark a revolution
that would topple the federal government. If confirmed, I will
supervise the prosecution of white supremacists and others who stormed
(33:32):
the Capitol on January sixth, a heinous attack that sought
to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy, the peaceful transfer
of power to a newly elected government.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
You recently wrote a piece for The New York Times
really comparing Merrick Garland's response and timeline after January sixth
to the way he dealt with the Oklahoma City bombing.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
And again, you have to remember what was going on
at the same time. The Oklahoma City bombing is April
of nineteen ninety five. The OJ Simpson case is at
its peak of national obsession in that at that time,
on the April nineteenth, that's where I was I was
covering the O. J. Simpson case. Garland was repelled by
(34:26):
all the publicity and the way the prosecutors got so
much attention, and the way there was so much, you know,
craziness associated with OJ. He has this tremendous aversion to
publicity about legal matters. He thinks it should be dealt
with just just in the courtroom. In his role in
(34:47):
nineteen ninety five and nineteen ninety seven, I can understand
that one ground for criticism I think of him in
nineteen ninety seven is we need to hear more of
the Merrick Garland. From his confirmation hearings, he has essentially
stopped talking about the investigation of January sixth. He says,
(35:08):
you know, you can get into trouble if you give
too much pre trial publicity. That's true only in the
most extreme cases. We have a situation now where Donald
Trump and much of the Republican Party is trying to
revise the history of January six is trying to say
these people are political prisoners, that what they did was
(35:29):
not was not so terrible. And Garland, with this aversion
to publicity, which was born in the OJ case in
nineteen ninety five, is staying on the sidelines as a
public figure, and I think that's a disappointment, but I
think it's also something that can be traced to what
went on in the mid nineties.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
He has an aversion to publicity but also to making
a broader political statement, right with his cases.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Absolutely, And you know, Bill Clinton, in addition to the
speech at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds, which was not political,
he gave a series of speeches in the spring and
summer of nineteen ninety five where he was saying, look
at the violence in the language of people on talk
(36:18):
radio about politics today. And you know, Rush Limbaugh knew
who that was directed at, and he was all wounded innocence, like,
don't blame me. Neither one of them knew how right
Clinton was. That McVeigh was inspired by Rush limbas style rhetoric,
and that is something that now, as Attorney General, Garland
(36:42):
could be saying, but he chooses not to.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
In fact, we have some sound of Rush Limbaugh from
twenty ten trying to connect Bill Clinton and Janet Reno
to the Oklahoma City bombing and Waco. Let's listen to that.
Speaker 5 (36:57):
Let me ask you a question, what was a more
likely cause of the Oklahoma City bombing, talk radio or
Bill Clinton and Janet Reno's hands on management of Waco,
the branch Davidian compound, and maybe to a lesser extent,
Ruby Ridge. Don't forget that the Oklahoma City bombing occurred
two years to the day after the Waco invasion. President
(37:22):
Clinton's ties to the domestic terrorism of Oklahoma City are tangible.
Talk radios ties are non existent.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Your reaction, Wow, I never heard that before. That's fascinating
I and perverse in the extreme, is that by supervising
the situation in Waco where tragically so many people died
seventy six people died, Bill Clinton should have known. Wrestling
bas says that that was going to lead to Timothy
(37:53):
mcveay's violence, which is so perverse and crazy that it's
even hard to know how to respond to it. But
it is indicative of how the right is trying to
distance themselves and have continued to try to distance themselves
from the fact that Timothy mcveay was a right wing
(38:16):
extremist at.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
The same time. Didn't Waco fuel his actions?
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Absolutely absolutely, And it is true that McVeigh chose the
date April nineteenth because it was the second anniversary of Waco,
but to turn that into it's the fault of the
people who were trying to deal with the situation in Waco.
And obviously it did not work out well and it
(38:44):
was not a good moment for the FBI. But the
idea that that somehow means they are responsible for Tim
mcvay's criminal act is perverse in the extreme.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Do you think Rush Limbaugh realize that Timothy McVeigh listened
to him non stop on these road trips.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
I don't think he did, because, frankly, no one knew
how passionately McVeigh followed Limbaugh until I found the records
of it in his discussion of it in these in
these papers at the Brisco Center at the University of Texas.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
I'm interested in what has galvanized the movement almost step
by step, leading to where it is today after nine
to eleven our attention obviously turned overseas while we weren't looking,
was something the farious happening.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
One of the things that really shocked me. I have
a long epilogue in Homegrown, which is which chronicles not
in a detailed way, but in a somewhat comprehensive way
right wing violence that has taken place during subsequent years.
This is not lone wolf activity, even if individuals are
(40:03):
not working with others. It is a movement that uses
violence as a matter of course, and they are more
active when Democrats are in power than when Republicans are.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
What is the state of sort of domestic terrorism today?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Well, in recent years moved largely to the form of
mass shootings as opposed to bombs. If you look at
many of the mass shootings, not all of them, but
many of them, whether it's shooting up the gay nightclub
in Orlando, or the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh,
(40:46):
or the walmart in El Paso or grocery store in Buffalo.
These are right wing extremists who were radicalized by the Internet,
and it is easy in this country to get your
hands on a semi automatic weapon, an assault weapon like
AR fifteens, and so many of these shootings have been
(41:07):
with AR fifteens and other assault weapons. That's where the
focus is in terms of law enforcement looking for it,
but it's very hard when there are thousands and thousands
of AR fifteens in circulation in this country. Right wing
extremism is now largely conducted through assault weapons. Rather than
(41:31):
bombs like McVay. But the people are just as dead.
This is the world we live in. And you know,
one reason I wrote Homegrown is this story of nineteen
ninety five is a story of what's going on in
the world in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
In fact, you write that the events of January sixth,
twenty twenty one saw the full flowering of mcveag's legacy
and contemporary politics. Let's listen to Alex Jones just before
the insurrection.
Speaker 7 (42:02):
Tomorrow is the right day.
Speaker 8 (42:06):
We don't quietly take the election fraud. This will be
their waterloo, this will be their destruction, the global as
storie here the lordless.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
One to play God.
Speaker 8 (42:23):
They are not God. And the answered to their nineteen
eighty four.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
Is sobent seventy, such savent.
Speaker 8 (42:33):
Souventy such sovent souventy six.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Salvage the prologue to my book. The chapter is called
seventeen seventy six. And one of the links between McVeigh
and Alex Jones and the ex insurrectionists is this weird
obsession with the founding fathers and the sense that our
(42:57):
rebellion against the federal government is just like our forefather's
rebellion against the British. Timothy McVeigh had memorized much of
the Declaration of Independence. Most people don't know much about
the Declaration of Independence after the first famous opening. Much
of the Declaration of Independence is a justification for why
(43:20):
we were fighting the British, and this has become sort
of right wing code. Marjorie Taylor Green talks about the
Declaration of Independence and the duty to rebel against tyrants.
So when you think about the links between McVeigh and
the January sixth people, it's not just a gun obsession,
(43:40):
it's not just a belief in violence. It's an identification
with the American Revolution and a justification for their actions,
just like the people in seventeen seventy six.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
It's hard to believe that in twenty twenty five it
will be the anniversary thirty year anniversary of the Oklahoma
City bombing. How do you assess those thirty years? I mean,
where are we now versus where we were then?
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Well, I don't want to say something good came of it,
but you know, people of Oklahoma to this day they
talk about the Oklahoma standard, which is civic involvement that
was part of the response and that is something that
is worth I don't think celebrating is the right word,
but at least recognizing. But you know, we are a
(44:29):
country on the negative side where right wing violence is
a persistent problem. It didn't start with Timothy mcveay, but
this attempt to sort of put McVeigh in a box
as someone who was an aberration. That's why I wrote Homegrown,
to show that he was not an aberration and that
(44:52):
his legacy lives on in both people and ideas that
are pursuit.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Listen to this day, Jeff Tuban Homegrown, Timothy McVeigh and
the Rise of right Wing Extremism. It's a terrific book.
Thank you so much for coming in to talk about it.
Thanks Katie, thanks for listening everyone. If you have a
question for me or want to share your thoughts about
how you navigate this crazy world reach out. You can
(45:22):
leave a short message at six h nine five P
one two five five five, or you can send me
a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you.
Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Kuric Media.
The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney ltz
Our supervising producer is Marcy Thompson. Our producers are Adrianna
(45:46):
Fazzio and Catherine Law. Our audio engineer is Matt Russell,
who also composed our theme music. For more information about
today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter, wake
Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app,
visit us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find
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(46:06):
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or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Hi, everyone, I'm Katy Kuric, and this is next question
I'll never forget. The morning of April nineteenth, nineteen ninety five,
we had just wrapped up the Today Show when we
got word that the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City
had been bombed. We immediately started covering the story.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Good morning, You're looking at a live picture of what's
left of the federal building in Oklahoma City, the site
of the worst terrorist bombing to ever hit the United States.
As a result of the blast, at least thirty six
people are dead, hundreds are injured, one hundreds still unaccounted for. Today, Thursday,
April the twentieth, nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
From NBC News. This is a special.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Edition of The building was in shambles, and I remember
my heart sinking when I heard there was a daycare
center on the premises.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And also to help this community recover. Katie, Good morning, Brian,
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
You know it's so horrifying to watch these pictures from Afar.
I can only imagine how difficult it is to be
there up close. We're going to be getting the very
latest from the White House this morning. We'll be hearing
from several survivors, including I'll also never forget the photo
of the firefighter carrying a bloodied, battered, yes deceased little girl.
(01:27):
She was just a toddler, one of nineteen kids who
were killed in the blast. I also actually went to
Oklahoma City and remember a makeshift memorial Teddy bears flowers
all covering a chain link fence. For days, weeks, even months,
(01:49):
we continue to cover the story because at the time
it was considered one of the deadliest acts on US
soil in history. But that's not what we thought at first.
In this half hour, we're going to be hearing from
a couple of experts on terrorism, both of whom say
the US government is not keeping up with the threat
posed by radical movements, and then later in the hour,
(02:09):
some of the heroes. So when I heard that Jeffrey
Tubin had written a new book called Homegrown, all about
Timothy McVeagh and the rise of right wing extremism, I
was anxious to talk to him. Jeffrey Tubin is a
terrific writer, and because he's a lawyer, he often focuses
on major cases. He's written nine books, everything from OJ
(02:33):
to Patricia Hurst. I was anxious to talk to him
to find out what has happened in the years since.
But we began our conversation with the discussion of who
people thought initially were responsible for the bomby, and those
were Middle Eastern extremists. I asked him why, and that's
(02:54):
how our conversation began.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Well, to answer that question, I give you two explanations.
One which is the more I guess the fairer one
is it had been a little more than two years
since the First World Trade Center bombing, and Ramsey Yusef,
the mastermind, had just been arrested in February of nineteen
ninety five, just you know, a little more than two
(03:21):
months before the Oklahoma City bombing, So the issue of
Islamic terrorism was very much in the mix. So that
is to me a kind of reasonable reason to at
least raise the possibility. The more sinister and disturbing explanation
is that it was a assumption that Americans couldn't do this,
(03:49):
and that this is just something Americans do not do,
and that was pernicious and wrong.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Why do you think the so called experts were in
such denial at the time that an American could do this?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Well, because I think this is a continuing pattern in
American life, and it is something that has gone on
with the Oklahoma City bombing, even after it's been convincingly
proved that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols acted alone. There
is a political interest, especially on the American right, in
the right wing, to say that we don't do this,
(04:29):
that these kinds of acts are not us, and the
desire to push the responsibility onto Islamic terrorists as opposed
to the right wing Americans who did it. It's a
political act. I mean, it is an attempt to steer
responsibility away from political, if not allies, people who are
(04:53):
at least somewhat sympathetic to you. So it is a
bad thing that we tried to blame foreigners for acts
that very clearly are entirely native grown.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Your book is so well written and actually thrilling to
read in terms of the suspense and everything that transpired
before and after Oklahoma City. I'm curious why you decided
to write about this. What caught your eye or your
attension about Oklahoma City.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Well, sometimes when I've had book subjects, it's just sort
of evolved. This book arose from something very specific in
October of twenty twenty, the FBI arrested a number of
people in the conspiracy to kidnap Governor Whitmer of Michigan.
(05:48):
I started looking into that, and it became very clear
almost from the start that most of the perpetrators were
involved with the Michigan Militia. I had covered the McVeigh
in Nichols trials in nineteen ninety seven. I didn't go
to Oklahoma City when it was still you know, in ruins,
but I did cover the trial. So I knew the
(06:08):
facts and in a more detailed way than I know
most stories from that long ago. And I knew that
Terry Nichols and his brother James had been affiliated with
the Michigan militia, and so I thought to my said,
I know these people, I know what they believe and
any so I started working, you know, trying to figure
(06:29):
out what was going on there. It was only right
after the election January sixth, that, of course, January sixth happened,
and it was quite clear to me that the people
who were the co conspirators in the Whitmer kidnapping attempt
and the January sixth people were very similar. That in
(06:50):
turn reminded me that they were like McVeigh and Nichols.
So that story that the connection between McVeigh and Nichols
and what came you know, just recently, was really what
prompted me to write the book. And I found, much
to my surprise and delight, that there was this unbelievable
(07:14):
source of information at the Brisco Center at the University
of Texas that no one, almost no one had ever
looked at.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Jeff talk about this treasure trove of files donated by
mcveigh's lead attorney, a man I interviewed many, many times
because he did love the camera to the University of Texas.
So first of all, why did he donate them? And
how helpful were they in writing this book?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You know, Katie, I have spent my entire career covering
the law and often covering trials in the aftermath of trials,
and it was the ultimate dream come true to find
this archive. Stephen Jones was the lead attorney for Timothy McVeigh.
He assembled, at government expense and in enormous team of lawyers,
(08:01):
like a dozen lawyers investigators. They traveled all over the world,
and they interviewed their client multiple times, and as a result,
every time one of them interviewed their client, they would
write a memo about what McVeigh said and then send
it around to everyone. What Stephen Jones did, which I
(08:22):
had no idea about until I started looking into this,
is he donated everything, every scrap of paper in connection
with the McVeigh case to the Brisco Center at the
University of Texas. Now, if there are any lawyers listening,
the first question anybody says is, how can a lawyer
do this? What about attorney client privilege? What about client confidences?
(08:48):
What a client tells his lawyer is protected forever, and
that is true even if the client dies, as Timothy
McVeigh was executed in two thousand and one. How could
Jones have done this? Well, that's a question that I
put to him, and it's a question he's addressed in
various forms. And his view is that McVeigh, by attacking
(09:15):
Jones later after his conviction, effectively waived the attorney client privilege.
I don't think that's true. I don't think it's accurate.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
But who would sue Jones anyway?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Well, that was the thing and fairness to Stephen Jones.
Another thing he has said is he realizes how important
this case was. But the answer to your question is,
I don't think he had the right to give this
stuff away. I don't think it was right. I thought
he was subject to discipline from the Bar Association. Hasn't happened.
But I don't think this is what a proper behavior
(09:52):
for a lawyer. Just but it's not my problem. But exactly,
I mean, that's why.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Are you the first author that really had, you know,
comb through these files. Because other people have written about
Timothy McVeigh.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I'm not the first person to have looked at any
of it. I don't know that it's ever been cited before.
I'm certainly the first person to look at it in detail,
and it's been there since the early two thousands, but
almost no one has looked at it as far as
I was aware.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Let's go back to those days, Jeff, when you were
covering the McVeigh and Nichols trials in nineteen ninety seven,
you write that you quote failed to understand, much less
explain mcveigh's place in the broader slipstream of American history.
With the benefit of hindsight now and a re examination
of everything that happened before and after the Oklahoma City bombing.
(10:50):
How have you come to understand Timothy mcveay differently? You
must feel at this point you know him pretty intimately.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
I do. I do, and I do feel that the
picture of him that I and others presented it wasn't
exactly inaccurate, but it was very much incomplete. The picture
that you got of Timothy McVeigh from my work, and
I think for most coverage in the mid nineties, was
(11:21):
of a lone eccentric, a lone wolf, someone who was
fueled by his own idiosyncratic grievances to do these terrible acts.
And what the documents that I found at the Brisco
Center and all of my reporting proved to me was
(11:43):
that's wrong is that Timothy mcveay was part of a movement.
A phrase you to this day often here about McVeigh
is that he was anti government. That's wrong. He was
not anti government. He was not an anarchist. He was
anti the government in power then Bill Clinton's government. He
(12:05):
was a right wing extremist. He was not an anarchist.
He was part of the movement of Newt Gingrich. He
was part of Rush Limbaugh's Dittohead audience. One of the
things he talked about with his lawyers often is that
as he went for these very long drives around the country,
whether he was going from his home near Buffalo, to
(12:27):
visiting Nichols in Michigan, to visiting his friend in Arizona,
to visiting the scene of Waco, or his sister in Florida,
these incredibly long drives, he was always listening to Rush Limbaugh.
I mean, he was part of the right wing movement
of the nineteen nineties. And one haunting thing he said
to his lawyers was, I knew there was an army
(12:50):
out there, an army out there of people like me,
but I never found it. And he didn't because he
didn't have the tools and just to get yet to
one of the larger points of the book, which is
the difference between McVeigh and January sixth, is the Internet
and social media. Because the people who wanted to kidnap
(13:12):
Governor Whitmer, they could find each other on Facebook, private chats.
If you look at the guy who shot up the walmart,
the guy who shot up the grocery store in Buffalo.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
The Tree of Life, the Tree of.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Life guy in Pittsburgh, all of them were radicalized online
and McVeigh didn't have that, and he didn't have the
opportunity to find others even though he was looking.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
When we come back, how the assault weapons band implemented
in nineteen ninety four may have pushed Timothy McVeigh over
the edge. If you want to get smarter every morning
with a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on
health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our
daily news wake up call by going to Katiecuric dot com.
(14:11):
And we're back. Tell us a little bit about Timothy
mcvay's personality because it was so long ago, and of
course his picture and his photograph loom large in my mind.
But you describe him, I think as a modern day
in cell in some ways. But tell us a little
(14:31):
bit more about him as a person.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Well, let's start with where he grew up outside Buffalo.
His father worked at a GM plant that made mostly
air conditioners for thirty years. His grandfather worked at the
same GM plant for thirty years. There was a stability
in that community that by the time tim was growing
(14:56):
up was gone. So this sense of economic location was
a big part of it. Also, his parents had a
unhappy marriage. And here here's where you know a lot
of people's parents have unhappy marriages, but here there's a
particularly distinctive fact that to me always seemed highly relevant.
(15:19):
In the family, there were two daughters and one son,
and McVeigh was in the middle. The mother kept moving
out during his teenage years, and every time she moved away,
she took the two daughters, but not tim And it
always seemed to me like a kind of Sophie's choice
situation where your mother doesn't pick you, and that I
(15:42):
think had a psychological impact on him, and the way
he talked about his mother with tremendous bitterness, that she
was a drunk and a slut, and who knows when
any of that was true, but that anger against women
came through in his later life. After high school, he
went to a business college for a while, didn't do
(16:04):
well there. He enlisted in the army. He was a
very good soldier, a very effective soldier, won a bronze
star in the First Gulf War. But when he came back,
he tried out for the Green Berets for special Forces,
and he bombed out of the test almost immediately, and
so in nineteen ninety one ninety two, that was when
(16:28):
his life sort of fell apart because he wasn't in
the military, he couldn't make a connection with a woman,
he had no financial prospects. There was nothing for him
in Buffalo, and that's when he turned to the political extremism.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
A lot of depictions of McVeigh portray him as sort
of a freakish outsider, but you make the point that
his views were very much aligned was sort of mainstream
Republican doctrine at the time.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Right, That's right. I mean, it's important to remain sort
of what was going on in American politics at that point.
In nineteen ninety four, Nut Gingrich led America led the
Republicans with the Contract with America to a huge victory
in the midterm elections, where they retook the House, they
(17:18):
retook the Senate, and Bill Clinton was almost a marginal
figure in the lead up to the ninety four elections.
One of the ways Bill Clinton wanted to restore some
sort of political success was in September of nineteen ninety four,
he succeeded in getting Congress to pass the assault weapons
(17:40):
ban over furious Republican opposition. That was the act that
convinced McVeigh to conduct the bombing you know, I think
many people may remember that McVeigh was anguished and very
angry about the situation in Waco when the FBI raided
the Branch Davidian compound. Seventies six people were killed, and
(18:01):
that's true, But people forget how angry he was about
the assault weapons ban, which was a very conventional Republican view. Now,
obviously most Republicans did not engage in terrorism, but his
views were an exaggerated version of very conventional Republican views
(18:23):
of that era.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Let's listen to Bill Clinton as he's signing the assault
weapons ban on September thirteenth, nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
This bill makes it illegal for juveniles to own handguns,
and yes, without eroding the rights of sportsmen and women
in this country, we will finally ban these assault weapons
from our street that have no purpose other than to kill.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Gosh, it could be yesterday. But when you see mcveigh's reaction,
and you see mcveigh's obsession with gun rights in the
Second Amendment, it is one of the clearest connections between
McVeigh and January sixth, twenty twenty one, that the fixation
of gun rights on the right is so intense and
(19:13):
so powerful and really bigger than any other issue, Bigger
than abortion, bigger than taxes. That's what the modern right
wing cares about, and it's what McVeigh cared about.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I remember hearing Chris Murphy of Connecticut, though, talking about
how guns have become a proxy for so much more
than just Second Amendment rights.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
I couldn't agree more, which makes it all the more
important to people, because if you are saying to someone,
I want to eliminate your right to buy an AR fifteen,
you're not just talking about AR fifteen's You're talking about
an entire worldview. It becomes an existential threat to you
(19:57):
as a person, taking away your salt weapon. And that's
how McVeigh saw it, and that's how a lot of
people see it today.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
You talk about Timothy mcvey's personality, but what about Terry Nichols,
He helped him build the bomb?
Speaker 5 (20:12):
Right?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
How did those two hook up? And you have Mike
Fortier as well.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
The three of them met on the first day of
basic training when they all enlisted in the army in
nineteen eighty eight, But they were three very different figures
with some aspects in common. McVeigh was from outside Buffalo,
a land of industrial decline. Terry Nichols was from the
Thumb of Michigan, an area of agricultural decline. His family
(20:43):
were small farmers who just couldn't make it anymore, and
so in that respect, their lives were very parallel. Mike
Fortier was from a grim town called Kingman, Arizona, and
all he wanted to do was get high and was
different from the two of them, and was not actively
involved in the conspiracy. He knew about it, but he
(21:05):
did not participate in it. But Nichols is a very
different personality than McVeigh. McVeigh was an evil person. He
was also highly intelligent, effective, organized, resourceful, and really smart
in certain ways. Nichols was a screw up from day
(21:29):
one whose life cascaded from one failure to the next.
You know, he bombed out of his attempt to go
to college. He never really got a job. I mean,
he left to his own devices. Would never, I think,
have conducted the Oklahoma City bombing on his own, but
led by McVeigh, did participate in the conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Mike Fortier ended up basically cooperating with the government.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
He became the star witness for the government in its
case against McVeigh, and at one point they drove across
the country together and McVeigh took him to Oklahoma City
and said, look, this is where I'm going to set
off the bomb. The horror of Mike Fortyer's story is
that if he had gotten off his ass and made
(22:21):
one phone call to the FBI and said stop this guy,
because he's really going to do it, he could have
saved dozens and dozens of lives.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I'm curious how mcveigh's and Nichol's convictions galvanized the right wing.
He had a hard time, and of course he wasn't
a very charismatic person who could recruit other people. But
what impact did the trial and the conviction have on
this growing movement of right wing extremists in this country?
Speaker 3 (22:56):
A tremendous effort to distance McVeigh from the movement. There
was a full congressional investigation in the later nineties led
by a congressman from from California and Dana Robacher, who
met I won't say manufactured, but used really bogus evidence
(23:19):
to suggest that Terry Nichols was really in league with
Islamic terrorists. It was, it was, It was ridiculous. But
I think it's it's it was part of the effort
that the right way on the right wing to say, well,
he really wasn't one of us.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Do you think anyone else was involved?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
I don't. I you know, this is something I took
very seriously. Now on the left, Interestingly, just as there's
been an attempt on the right to distance McVeigh from
the right wing movement, there's been an attempt on the
left to associate McVeigh with the broader right wing movement
and to suggest that there were lots of people who
wanted to blow up the MURV building. There is absolutely
(24:02):
no evidence that I've seen that anyone was involved in
this bombing except McVeigh, Nichols, and Fortier in the sense
that he knew about it, even if he didn't participate.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
You interviewed President Clinton for your book, and he told
you that he was almost immediately convinced that this was
homegrown terrorism.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
This to me, was the most interesting reporting experience I
had when I was working on Homegrown, just because of
the order you do reporting, you know, you never know
exactly how it's going to unfold. I had interviewed several
people who were in the White House on April nineteenth,
nineteen ninety five, and as you pointed out, a lot
of people on television were saying these were Islamic terrorists,
(24:47):
like the first World Trade Center bombing, and these were
people who were in the Oval Office with Clinton at
the time. And Clinton, of course didn't say this publicly.
He didn't want to prejudge the investigation. But he said
to them, this was not foreign, this was homegrown. These
were the militias. I know these people. And so when
(25:08):
I went to interview Clinton after talking to these other people,
I said to him, well, how did you know that
it was domestic when everybody was saying that it was foreign.
And he proceeded to tell me, you know, I knew
these people from Arkansas. And then he started reciting chapter
and verse of right wing extremism, including some very violent,
(25:33):
deadly stuff that he had dealt with in Arkansas when
he was governor. And meanwhile, I'm interviewing Bill Clinton in
twenty twenty two, and he is telling me about day
by day events in nineteen eighty three, eighty fourty five.
I went backed and checked it out. His memory was impeccable.
So it was fascinating to me that Clinton understood the anger,
(25:55):
the passion, the violence that was so evident in THEIA movement,
and he saw in the Oklahoma City bombing before the
experts did who was really behind it.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Fascinating and I sometimes think that the government doesn't get
enough credit. I mean, the way they handled the aftermath
of Oklahoma City, the fact that he was arrested Timothy
McVeigh what ninety minutes after the bombing by a very
alert state trooper who noticed his license plate was missing.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Right, there's a lot, there's some.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Was serendipitous and someone was just really good investigation.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
I mean, you know, the FBI gets criticized for a lot,
and for good reason. They did a superlative job, and
Trooper Charlie Hager also did something amazing. But just to
remind people how this all unfolded, the bombing took place
at nine o two am on April nineteenth. It was
(26:53):
this horrible explosion and then two blocks away, something came
through the air and nearly crushed someone who was in
a Ford Fiesta right there. It was a truck axle,
and everybody could tell this came from very far away.
The axle had a ven number, a vehicle identification number
(27:16):
on it. It's traced to Rider Truck Rental. Rider says
that truck was rented in Junction City, Kansas by a
guy named Robert Kling three days earlier. FBI agents go,
they fan out over Junction City, Kansas. They go to
all the motels. They go to the Dreamland Motel, this
(27:36):
kind of sleazy motel right by the highway, and they
asked the proprietor and they say, has anybody been here
with a rider truck? And they say, yeah, a guy
parked a rider truck three days ago and he stayed here.
What was his name, Timothy McVeigh. And then they found
that that person had ordered Chinese food from the Hunam
(27:59):
restaurant on and he had ordered food from Room twenty
five because they had the phone records under the name
Robert Kling. So that's how they discovered that Robert Kling
and Timothy McVeigh were the same person. He used Timothy
McVeigh to rent the hotel room.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
What a dope? Maybe a credit carding, No, no.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
It was all cash. He was careless, he made a mistake.
And then the state the state trooper again the crazy coincidences.
Charlie Hanger, who I have to say, is like the
coolest guy in the world was. I interviewed him ninety
minutes after the bombing. He is he is pissed because
he wants to be sent to Oklahoma City where all
(28:42):
the action is, but they say, no, continue your regular patrols.
He sees a broken down old Mercury marquis driving north
away from Oklahoma City with no license plate. He pulls
the car over and as the guy gets out of
the car, the driver of this car he as his
jacket opens that he's carrying a gun, and he spins
(29:06):
him around and puts him against the car. You to
frisk him, and McVeigh says to him, you know that
gun's loaded, and Charlie Hager puts the gun to mcveay's
the base of mcveig's skull and says, so is mine,
which is like the badass line of all time. I
just love that. Anyway, he brings him in because in
(29:28):
Oklahoma at that time, to carry an unregistered gun is
a crime. Let's fast forward to today, when the right
wing government of Oklahoma has ended that requirement. If Tim
McVeagh had been arrested today, Charlie Hager couldn't have arrested him.
All he could have done is give him a ticket
for having anno license plate, because it's legal now to
(29:52):
carry an unlicensed gun in Oklahoma. They put mcveigh's name
in the database of people arrested, and they discover we
have this guy in custody in Oklahoma. They call the
courthouse in the jail and they say, do you have
a guy named Timothy McVeigh there. Yeah, we're about to
(30:12):
release him because it was such minor charges, and they
start screaming, don't release him, don't release him, and they
send a helicopter and that's how they get him.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
I know the book has been often for a scripted series,
and it's pretty much writing myself right there.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
So I hope so.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
From my lips to God's ear when we come back.
How Bill Clinton's reaction to what happened in Oklahoma City
resurrected his presidency. Let's talk about the remarks Bill Clinton
(30:54):
delivered at the memorial service at the Oklahoma Fairgrounds. You
describe it as one of the most consequential of his presidency.
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 6 (31:04):
You have lost too much, but you have not lost everything,
and you have certainly not lost America, or we will
stand with you, or as many.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Tomorrows as it takes.
Speaker 6 (31:27):
To all my fellow Americans.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Beyond this hall, I say, one thing we owe those
who have sacrificed is the duty to purge ourselves of
the dark forces which gave rise to this evil.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Why was it such an important address?
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Well, you know, the national feeling of horror and outrage
was was really profound. I mean, remember, this is nineteen
ninety five, it's before nine to eleven. There has really
never been an event like this in modern American history.
And Clinton, who you know, he wasn't a senator, he
(32:13):
was a governor. So he had done a lot of funerals,
he had comforted people. And you know, the thing that
many people to this day remember about Bill Clinton is
that he felt other people's pain. And in his speech
at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds, you know, he really captured
that feeling of national sorrow and national purpose where he
(32:37):
really rose to the occasion. And after losing control of
the House and Senate in the previous midterms November, this
is only five months later, this was really the beginning
of Bill Clinton's political resurrection, which continued into his reelection.
The following year.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
You contrast Bill Clinton's handling of the bombings aftermath with
that of Merrick Garlands. Let's listen to now ag Garland
talking about his role during his confirmation hearings.
Speaker 7 (33:11):
From nineteen ninety five to nineteen ninety seven. I supervised
the prosecution of the perpetrators of the bombing of the
Oklahoma City Federal Building, who sought to spark a revolution
that would topple the federal government. If confirmed, I will
supervise the prosecution of white supremacists and others who stormed
(33:32):
the Capitol on January sixth, a heinous attack that sought
to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy, the peaceful transfer
of power to a newly elected government.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
You recently wrote a piece for The New York Times
really comparing Merrick Garland's response and timeline after January sixth
to the way he dealt with the Oklahoma City bombing.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
And again, you have to remember what was going on
at the same time. The Oklahoma City bombing is April
of nineteen ninety five. The OJ Simpson case is at
its peak of national obsession in that at that time,
on the April nineteenth, that's where I was I was
covering the O. J. Simpson case. Garland was repelled by
(34:26):
all the publicity and the way the prosecutors got so
much attention, and the way there was so much, you know,
craziness associated with OJ. He has this tremendous aversion to
publicity about legal matters. He thinks it should be dealt
with just just in the courtroom. In his role in
(34:47):
nineteen ninety five and nineteen ninety seven, I can understand
that one ground for criticism I think of him in
nineteen ninety seven is we need to hear more of
the Merrick Garland. From his confirmation hearings, he has essentially
stopped talking about the investigation of January sixth. He says,
(35:08):
you know, you can get into trouble if you give
too much pre trial publicity. That's true only in the
most extreme cases. We have a situation now where Donald
Trump and much of the Republican Party is trying to
revise the history of January six is trying to say
these people are political prisoners, that what they did was
(35:29):
not was not so terrible. And Garland, with this aversion
to publicity, which was born in the OJ case in
nineteen ninety five, is staying on the sidelines as a
public figure, and I think that's a disappointment, but I
think it's also something that can be traced to what
went on in the mid nineties.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
He has an aversion to publicity but also to making
a broader political statement, right with his cases.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Absolutely, And you know, Bill Clinton, in addition to the
speech at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds, which was not political,
he gave a series of speeches in the spring and
summer of nineteen ninety five where he was saying, look
at the violence in the language of people on talk
(36:18):
radio about politics today. And you know, Rush Limbaugh knew
who that was directed at, and he was all wounded innocence, like,
don't blame me. Neither one of them knew how right
Clinton was. That McVeigh was inspired by Rush limbas style rhetoric,
and that is something that now, as Attorney General, Garland
(36:42):
could be saying, but he chooses not to.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
In fact, we have some sound of Rush Limbaugh from
twenty ten trying to connect Bill Clinton and Janet Reno
to the Oklahoma City bombing and Waco. Let's listen to that.
Speaker 5 (36:57):
Let me ask you a question, what was a more
likely cause of the Oklahoma City bombing, talk radio or
Bill Clinton and Janet Reno's hands on management of Waco,
the branch Davidian compound, and maybe to a lesser extent,
Ruby Ridge. Don't forget that the Oklahoma City bombing occurred
two years to the day after the Waco invasion. President
(37:22):
Clinton's ties to the domestic terrorism of Oklahoma City are tangible.
Talk radios ties are non existent.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Your reaction, Wow, I never heard that before. That's fascinating
I and perverse in the extreme, is that by supervising
the situation in Waco where tragically so many people died
seventy six people died, Bill Clinton should have known. Wrestling
bas says that that was going to lead to Timothy
(37:53):
mcveay's violence, which is so perverse and crazy that it's
even hard to know how to respond to it. But
it is indicative of how the right is trying to
distance themselves and have continued to try to distance themselves
from the fact that Timothy mcveay was a right wing
(38:16):
extremist at.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
The same time. Didn't Waco fuel his actions?
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Absolutely absolutely, And it is true that McVeigh chose the
date April nineteenth because it was the second anniversary of Waco,
but to turn that into it's the fault of the
people who were trying to deal with the situation in Waco.
And obviously it did not work out well and it
(38:44):
was not a good moment for the FBI. But the
idea that that somehow means they are responsible for Tim
mcvay's criminal act is perverse in the extreme.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Do you think Rush Limbaugh realize that Timothy McVeigh listened
to him non stop on these road trips.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
I don't think he did, because, frankly, no one knew
how passionately McVeigh followed Limbaugh until I found the records
of it in his discussion of it in these in
these papers at the Brisco Center at the University of Texas.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
I'm interested in what has galvanized the movement almost step
by step, leading to where it is today after nine
to eleven our attention obviously turned overseas while we weren't looking,
was something the farious happening.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
One of the things that really shocked me. I have
a long epilogue in Homegrown, which is which chronicles not
in a detailed way, but in a somewhat comprehensive way
right wing violence that has taken place during subsequent years.
This is not lone wolf activity, even if individuals are
(40:03):
not working with others. It is a movement that uses
violence as a matter of course, and they are more
active when Democrats are in power than when Republicans are.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
What is the state of sort of domestic terrorism today?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Well, in recent years moved largely to the form of
mass shootings as opposed to bombs. If you look at
many of the mass shootings, not all of them, but
many of them, whether it's shooting up the gay nightclub
in Orlando, or the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh,
(40:46):
or the walmart in El Paso or grocery store in Buffalo.
These are right wing extremists who were radicalized by the Internet,
and it is easy in this country to get your
hands on a semi automatic weapon, an assault weapon like
AR fifteens, and so many of these shootings have been
(41:07):
with AR fifteens and other assault weapons. That's where the
focus is in terms of law enforcement looking for it,
but it's very hard when there are thousands and thousands
of AR fifteens in circulation in this country. Right wing
extremism is now largely conducted through assault weapons. Rather than
(41:31):
bombs like McVay. But the people are just as dead.
This is the world we live in. And you know,
one reason I wrote Homegrown is this story of nineteen
ninety five is a story of what's going on in
the world in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
In fact, you write that the events of January sixth,
twenty twenty one saw the full flowering of mcveag's legacy
and contemporary politics. Let's listen to Alex Jones just before
the insurrection.
Speaker 7 (42:02):
Tomorrow is the right day.
Speaker 8 (42:06):
We don't quietly take the election fraud. This will be
their waterloo, this will be their destruction, the global as
storie here the lordless.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
One to play God.
Speaker 8 (42:23):
They are not God. And the answered to their nineteen
eighty four.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
Is sobent seventy, such savent.
Speaker 8 (42:33):
Souventy such sovent souventy six.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Salvage the prologue to my book. The chapter is called
seventeen seventy six. And one of the links between McVeigh
and Alex Jones and the ex insurrectionists is this weird
obsession with the founding fathers and the sense that our
(42:57):
rebellion against the federal government is just like our forefather's
rebellion against the British. Timothy McVeigh had memorized much of
the Declaration of Independence. Most people don't know much about
the Declaration of Independence after the first famous opening. Much
of the Declaration of Independence is a justification for why
(43:20):
we were fighting the British, and this has become sort
of right wing code. Marjorie Taylor Green talks about the
Declaration of Independence and the duty to rebel against tyrants.
So when you think about the links between McVeigh and
the January sixth people, it's not just a gun obsession,
(43:40):
it's not just a belief in violence. It's an identification
with the American Revolution and a justification for their actions,
just like the people in seventeen seventy six.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
It's hard to believe that in twenty twenty five it
will be the anniversary thirty year anniversary of the Oklahoma
City bombing. How do you assess those thirty years? I mean,
where are we now versus where we were then?
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Well, I don't want to say something good came of it,
but you know, people of Oklahoma to this day they
talk about the Oklahoma standard, which is civic involvement that
was part of the response and that is something that
is worth I don't think celebrating is the right word,
but at least recognizing. But you know, we are a
(44:29):
country on the negative side where right wing violence is
a persistent problem. It didn't start with Timothy mcveay, but
this attempt to sort of put McVeigh in a box
as someone who was an aberration. That's why I wrote Homegrown,
to show that he was not an aberration and that
(44:52):
his legacy lives on in both people and ideas that
are pursuit.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Listen to this day, Jeff Tuban Homegrown, Timothy McVeigh and
the Rise of right Wing Extremism. It's a terrific book.
Thank you so much for coming in to talk about it.
Thanks Katie, thanks for listening everyone. If you have a
question for me or want to share your thoughts about
how you navigate this crazy world reach out. You can
(45:22):
leave a short message at six h nine five P
one two five five five, or you can send me
a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you.
Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Kuric Media.
The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney ltz
Our supervising producer is Marcy Thompson. Our producers are Adrianna
(45:46):
Fazzio and Catherine Law. Our audio engineer is Matt Russell,
who also composed our theme music. For more information about
today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter, wake
Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app,
visit us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find
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