February 16, 2024 • 50 mins
On this episode of The Middle, we explore the subject of a new documentary film called "War Game." The filmmakers, along with the Vet Voice Foundation, gathered former military and political leaders from the last five presidential administrations together to simulate another January 6th-style event, only much worse, because there’s a split in loyalty within the military.
The film premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, where Jeremy Hobson interviewed many people involved in the film: directors Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber, Janessa Goldbeck, CEO of the Vet Voice Foundation, former Montana Governor Steve Bullock, former North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Army Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Alexander Vindman, former Trump Administration Department of Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Neumann, Major General (Ret.) Linda Singh, and Marine Corps Veteran and investigative journalist Chris Jones.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. We are now
less than nine months away from a presidential election that
could well be a rematch between President Biden and former
President Trump. The former president, though, has never conceded to
the current one. The transfer of power happened just weeks
after the US capital was stormed on January sixth, twenty
(00:26):
twenty one, as Congress was preparing to certify the results
of the election.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
So what if.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Something like that were to happen again? No concession, claims
of fraud, an attack on the capital, but this time
a split in military allegiances as well. That is the
topic of the new documentary film War Game, which premiered
last month at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
In it, a number of former military and government officials
(00:53):
played different roles in a real time simulation of a
January sixth style disruptionident.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I do think is going to potentially escalate rapidly.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
If we overreact.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
I think it's going to come back and it'll haunt
your entire presidency.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
Well, we want to be ready if we need to react.
My understanding is they've already breached to the point of
being trespassers. I think that what you need, mister President.
You know, with all due deference to the to the secretary,
and I completely understand what you're saying. I think what
the public saw in twenty twenty one was underreaction. I
(01:29):
don't think anyone is anticipating we need the full strength
of the military, but we have to respond so we
don't have a repeat of what happened in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
So that's We'll get to our conversation with a number
of people associated with the film in a moment. But
first to your comments about whether what happened on January sixth,
twenty twenty one, should keep former President Trump off the
ballot this year. We asked you that on last week's show,
as the Supreme Court considered the same question, and we
got more voicemails than any show we've done so far.
Speaker 6 (02:01):
My name is Michael Rowe. I'm calling from Artsville, Tennessee.
Whether Trump should be on the ballot or not. I'm
not affiliated with any political party and I am active duty.
Why not just let the states decide?
Speaker 7 (02:14):
Hi, my name is Maria Mason. I'm calling from Clearwater, Florida,
regarding Trump being allowed on the ballot. My answer is
a resounding hell no.
Speaker 6 (02:25):
My name's Paul for Pennsylvania, and I believe that Donald
Trump should be on the ballot. Let the people decide
this election.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
We'll see how that case goes in the Supreme Court.
Thanks so much to everyone who called in. So now
to this week's topic, the new documentary War Game, which
puts a number of former military and political leaders in
a simulation about another January sixth, and they all play
different roles. Former Montana Governor Steve Bullock plays the president
who has just won a close election, but his rival
(02:58):
says the election was stolen. The film was directed by
Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss and was the brainchild of
the Vet Voice Foundation, whose CEO, Genessa Goldbeck, is a
Marine Corps veteran herself. I started the conversation by asking
Goldbeck where the idea for wargame came from.
Speaker 8 (03:16):
We had three retired generals Pennanoped and the Washington Post
after January sixth, twenty twenty one, and they were all
advisors to our foundation. We are a national, nonpartisan organization
that represents over a million and a half veterans and
military families. Across the country, and one of their recommendations
was for the administration to do an exercise like this.
This is a very standard way of training in the military,
(03:38):
to do an exercise where you game out situations and
vulnerabilities that you could be exposed to. And we realized
we had the network to put on an exercise like
this ourselves, to do it in a non partisan manner,
to involve administration officials from the last five presidential administrations
from both parties, people who are deeply concerned, because the
reality is that, as I said in the clip, the
(03:59):
alarm are flashing red. There is an increasing amount of
extremism in this country. And the military is a microcosm
of our society. So when you have folks who are
well trained, who understand how to seed violence and create
discord and division, and they also have military training, it
becomes an extremely challenging and frightening scenario. So we really
(04:21):
wanted to see what happens if there's another contested election,
But this time rogue elements of the military participated.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
And I said, you're a Marine Corps veteran.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Is there something in your background that you saw people
that you thought maybe they would go rogue in this
way or is this just something that a fear that existed.
Speaker 8 (04:39):
Well, we know that military veterans were overrepresented in the
folks who participated in the insurrection on January sixth. We
know that extremism is a rising problem in our active
duty forces. There have been multiple studies that examine this issue.
You know, when you're serving in the military, you're serving
in a nonpartisan manner. You may have your own political
beliefs and values. That's one of the great beauties of
(05:01):
the institution is that people from all walks of life
can come together and achieve a common cause. But when
we have these elements in our society that are now
believing that actually committing violence and trying to overthrow the
duly elected US government is patriotic, that's a pretty big
challenge for us to tackle. And I think the military
(05:22):
has acknowledged that it is an issue, but there are
many things that they still could do.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Jesse Moss, you're one of the directors and a producer
as well. Why make this into a film? Who is
it for?
Speaker 9 (05:32):
Well, first and foremost, to confront questions that I have.
That's where I start as a filmmaker. How do I
make sense of what happened on January sixth and what
is our political future? Bringing together these experienced public servants,
they were asked to improvise their roles and their words
based on their lived experience. And that was the exciting
(05:53):
combination that we saw. This was documentary, live, improvisational theater,
dystopian science fiction, and political three thriller all at once.
And what kind of film would it be? What kind
of story could we tell? And could we invite people
to a conversation about what we all care about, which
is our country, our institutions, our values.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Tony Gerber, you're also a director of this film. The
issue of how to portray January sixth has become very polarizing.
Was it an insurrection? Was it a rebellion? Was it
an event? Was it, as Donald Trump says, a tourist
visit gone wrong. He's now referring, though, to people who
are convicted as hostages January six hostages. How do you
(06:35):
keep this film from being seen as political when such
a large portion of this country doesn't even want to
think about January six anymore.
Speaker 10 (06:43):
Yeah, that's a good question. Well, I can tell you
that you know, famously, Francis Ford. Coppolaz said that a
movie gets written three times, first time in the writing,
second time in the shooting, third time in the editing.
In the case of our documentary, the fourth time will
be when it's released into the world. But I can
tell you that in making this film, we really leaned
away from the potential for the story of this war
(07:07):
game and our film to be spun by QAnon voices,
for example. It's important that this film brings people together.
It's not a look back at the last January sixth,
it's a look forward, and it's a film that's really
intended not just to remind folks of a potential nightmare,
(07:27):
but to also bring hope right and belief in our
political system and our institutions.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It is a very different time now, though, than it
was when you made this film. Donald Trump is almost
certain to be the nominee of the Republican Party again
for president. He has said he should be immune from
prosecution even if he crosses a line. He said he
wants to be a dictator on day one. Do you
think the film should be seen in a different light
(07:55):
now than when you filmed it.
Speaker 9 (07:58):
I wish that it were less relevant in some way.
But it's true that Trump was on the periphery when
we began this project. But we know that the threats
that this exercise in this film confront go beyond one person.
They are a kind of cancer in our country and
a division that you talked about. And I think that
regardless of the outcome of the twenty twenty four election,
(08:20):
this is a problem that persists within the military and
the military's role its functioned as this bulwark of our democracy.
Something we take for granted is something we have to
talk about to foresee the unforseeable. It's sometimes hard to
look at those things, but we have a responsibility to
and it's our job as filmmakers to find it in
an inventive and creative way. To bring you to that conversation.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Governor Steve Bullock, you're what I think we could call
a moderate former governor of Montana. What is your sense
of how the average American people in your state view
the events of January sixth and how worried they are
about it today.
Speaker 11 (08:55):
Just a few weeks ago, there was a poll nationally
it said a quarter of Americans think that January sixth
was incited by the FBI. You look at it right now,
there's one hundred and seventy one members of Congress, one
third representing thirty seven states that say there are election deniers.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Well, something like sixty six percent of Republicans in the
Iowa Caucus has believed that Biden was not a legitimate president.
Speaker 11 (09:23):
So yeah, where are we today in Montana or all
across the country. We're at a very dangerous point, and
I think the idea of the film isn't to look backwards,
is to look forward.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
The notion that.
Speaker 11 (09:36):
Literally twenty five percent of Americans think the FBI created
this in January sixth is such a challenge that needs
to be discussed, and it doesn't need to be discussed
necessarily just in Washington. C right needs to be discussed
in communities all across red and blue, because this isn't
about politics, right, This is about a country and norms
(10:01):
and a rule of law that we all expect.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
What do you think, Senator Heidi Hydekemp, you also would
be considered a moderate. You represented North Dakota and the Senate.
Are your neighbors in North Dakota worried about this?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Should they be?
Speaker 12 (10:15):
No?
Speaker 5 (10:15):
I think that one of the reasons why this film
is so important is denial. The country's in denial, right,
so we deny that it even happened. That was like
a tourism problem that was incited by the FBI. But
these people are hostages, and so there's no consistency in
how we're looking at it, and that's why it is
(10:37):
so important. We found out that after the January sixth
committee hearings that people started understanding and appreciating because they
saw it on television prime time and they watched it
and it reignited the feelings that they felt on January sixth,
which was horror about what was happening in our country.
(10:58):
That then gives there's a period of gaslighting that goes
on that really wasn't that bad.
Speaker 13 (11:04):
Those folks are patriots, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
We have to have.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
Events like this movie to remind people. So that's why
the movie is important. The biggest enemy of protection of
the democracy is people saying can never happen again. I'm
not saying it's probable that it could happen again. Is
it possible? Absolutely? When people believe that somehow along the
(11:29):
way something has been taken from them, that there is
a rig system, and they can't even appreciate the fairness
of their elections. I want to make just one point
of optimism. I watched the twenty twenty two midterms holding
my breath because a lot of the people on the
ballot were selected by Donald Trump. And the question was,
(11:52):
were those people, when they lost, going to deny the
election results? All but one they all conceded, Well, that's
a bit of optimism. And so when we create the
idea that the norm has to be established of understanding
and realizing that our elections are fair, they achieve a
(12:13):
result that promotes democracy. But if we deny that, it
could happen again. Guess what we're unprepared for? What could happen?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
That was former North Dakota Senator Heidi Hidekamp speaking with
me as part of a panel at the Sundance.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
She plays the president's senior advisor in the documentary film Wargame.
In just a moment, we'll hear from more members of
the panel, including retired Army lieutenant colonel and Trump whistleblower
Alexander Vinman, about the issue of a split in military loyalty.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Stay with us. More of the Middle coming home.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
This is the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. Over the last
several months, we've tackled a number of topics, from immigration
to inflation, to abortion to artificial intelligence. All of those
topics have come up and will come up in this
presidential election year. But the fact that we vote on
those issues and can have a say in what our
government does about them is based on the idea of
(13:23):
a democracy that listens to its citizens and respects their
will at the ballot box. The film Wargame puts former
military and government officials in a simulation in which there's
another January sixth style riot at the US Capitol and
there are split allegiances in the military. In one part
of the film, rogue members of the military take over
(13:44):
McDill Air Force Base in Florida as the US capital
is being attacked. Former Senator Doug Jones, who plays the
Attorney General, alerts Steve Bullock, who plays the President.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Mister President, we're picking up intercepted chatter among military that
they're taking what happened at mcdial and now they're trying
to spread that to other bases.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
How many soldiers are McDill twelve? They have gone rogue
is what I understood, not that many.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
These are twelve, you know, gun hole killers out there
who decided to take it in their own hands.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
So you got two four star generals down there.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
The concern we're getting is the chatter that this may spread,
and y'all need.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
To be aware of that.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
As we continued our conversation at the Sundance Film Festival
in Utah, I asked retired Army Major General Linda Singh,
who plays the chief of the National Guard Bureau in
the film, how realistic a split in the military is.
Speaker 13 (14:37):
The answer is, you know, the military is a microcosm
and we heard ten Essa's say that of society. So
for us to think that it could not happen in
the military, then we're putting our heads in the sand,
right We're just saying we're definitely in denial. And I
think you know what we have to pay attention to
is that, you know, we recruit from everywhere in the country,
(14:59):
and so if bringing in individuals that come from all
walks of life, you have to understand that we're going
to get individuals in the forces that will represent things
that we wouldn't see just bringing them in from an
enlisted perspective right when we bring them in to the door,
and so even you know, when I think about, you know,
how we have this exercise and how things were playing out.
(15:20):
You know, I was at the forefront of the civil
disturbance in Baltimore. We talked about this very issue. We
talked about what was going on across the country. So
to think that you know, it's not going to happen,
that it doesn't exist, I think that we're missing the point.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
What happens when that does happen? Is there? How is
that dealt with?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
When there's when you find out that somebody is being
disloyal in the military.
Speaker 13 (15:41):
Well, I mean, you know, first off, we do have
systems in place, but this is where true leadership has
to come into place, right, I mean, this is not
about you know, oh I have to protect my soldiers,
I have to protect my airmen. No, this is where
true leadership comes into place, and leaders within the organization.
You need to tamp down on that very quickly. If
you don't tamp down on it and deal with it,
(16:02):
then it is going to be pervasive and it will
ruin just the overall kind of togetherness, teamwork, everything within
the organization. And so what I think is really really
challenging is sometimes leaders are afraid to tamp down on
it because I want to get my recruitment numbers, and
we have to say, Okay, are we going to let
this actually run rampant through our organization or are we
(16:24):
going to worry about recruitment numbers.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
So is that a bigger problem now?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Is there a bigger problem with recruitment so people are
being brought in that may be a problem down the road.
Speaker 13 (16:33):
I think it's a bigger problem now because we've not
only seen where they're allowing to be able to kind
of share this voice and show up in places where
they shouldn't even in uniform, right, but even through the pandemic,
we've watched uniform members say well, I'm not going to
get a vaccine. I'm sorry. The military is the most
vaccinated force there is, which you're not going to get
a vaccine. And so I think that we're seeing it
(16:53):
more and more now and we need to deal with
how are we going to recruit, how are we going
to retain, and how are we going discipline? And we
can't be afraid to kind of talk about those things.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
But of course in this film and in this exercise,
it all has to be done very very quickly.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
You don't have a long time to figure that out.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Alex Vinman, you are a retired Army lieutenant colonel who
was director for European Affairs for the National Security Council.
Do you think that any sort of coup style split
is likely in today's climate?
Speaker 14 (17:24):
So, I think we came up with a scenario that
we thought was about as realistic as you can get.
If we look at the numbers of folks that were
pushed out of the military for refusing to take their vaccinations,
there were four thousand of those. There was another portion
that ended up taking the vaccines, but they were very
reluctant about it and have now have hard feelings and
are probably further radicalized than they were four years ago
(17:48):
when this first unfolded. I think the fact is that
it doesn't really take a huge number of military to
cause chaos. We looked mainly at national guard units, reserves,
folks that are really part of the tapestry of of
their societies more so than the folks that are active
duty day to day. Serving in that kind of environment
between law enforcement, reserves, national guard I think there is
(18:09):
a real possibility of radicalized elements coming up in states
and attempting to interfere with certification of elections. And then
even I think within the national the active duty force,
that's a threat. Now, I am a big believer in
the values, the army values and the integrity of the military,
and the vast majority will live up to their obligations
(18:29):
ninety seven, ninety eight, ninety nine percent will do that.
But it doesn't really take a huge amount, and we
need to be prepared for it. That's why this wargame
was so critically important to harden us for a future scenario.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Is it about the information that they're getting, I mean,
is it just about disinformation, misinformation that is making them,
when they've decided to go into a career in the military,
be disloyal to the constitution.
Speaker 14 (18:54):
So that's that's why I think this may be at
least my perception is that this is a bigger threat.
And then National Guard and the Reserve, where you're not
your day in, day out life is not within the
institution of the military, which does have kind of a moderating,
kind of homogenizing effect. You don't get as many radicals
coming out of that segment there are, but just maybe
(19:16):
not as many now. The folks that do this on
a less habitual basis, they're part of the they're communities
that are radicalized, they're part of the information loops that
are being targeted by the MAGA movement by foreign empties
on a day to day basis, and don't have that
moderating force from the rest of the military. Those folks
(19:39):
are just susceptible and from my standpoint, producing something like wargame,
the exercise that we did, the reports that we wrote,
sharing that with the government is important, but it's frankly
much more important to be able to share this with
society at large, not just the interested parties in Washington,
d C. But frankly with the rest of the country
(19:59):
that have different perceptions and needs to be alert to
these threats.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
A lot of our listeners know who you are.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
You were seen as a hero by many when you
blew the whistle on former President Trump and his phone
call to the Ukrainian president.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
You've now been vilified on the right.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
You are an actual victim of this polarization in this country.
How did that play into your experience in doing this
war game?
Speaker 14 (20:25):
So I've been part of the Voice Foundation and Vote
Vets really just about since the moment I left the
military service. And the reason I made that decision in
the first place is I was in uniform on active duty.
I was vilified and demonized by the Trump administration and
the far right, and I couldn't really do anything because
in the military, I'm bound by the uniform Code of
(20:47):
Military Justice. I couldn't defend myself. Once I was forced
out by the Trump administration, the gloves were off and
they did that to themselves. So immediately I took the
opportunity to punch back, wrote about my experiences with the
Trump administration. My wife and I ended up participating in
some ads indicating the threat that Donald Trump poses to
(21:11):
our democracy. Tried to be impactful in twenty twenty, and
I see it as a commitment to make sure that
other public servants are not demonized and nulified the way
I am. And I've been given a voice, and I'm
going to use it in a constructive way.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Simple, Chris Jones, you are also a former marine.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
You actually place someone in this film who is not
loyal to the Constitution. Let's take a listen to another
clip from the film and talk about it.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
On the other.
Speaker 12 (21:43):
Side, a new video has been released on social media
by the heads of the so called Order of Columbus,
the extremist group which has a long challenge the legitimacy
of the US government. Retired Army Lieutenant General Roger Simms,
who the Order refers to as the Patriarch, is claiming
to have evidence of a stolen election, and the group
(22:05):
is backing those members of the military who have appeared
to have gone rogue. Now this video was released just
a short time ago. We're going to play it for you.
A word of warning, some of what you'll hear is disturbing.
Speaker 15 (22:18):
We have undertaken an extensive investigation of the twenty twenty
four election, and it is Hatham who is attempting a
coup to consolidate his illegitimate power and eliminate our God
given freedoms.
Speaker 16 (22:33):
So the Red Cell is motivated not just by a
failed candidate who's trying to steal the presidency, but also
by a religious figure, someone with military experience who comes
with a lot of credibility, like former General Michael Flynn,
a convicted felon who spent his career fighting against insurgencies.
(22:58):
It is not unrealistic that figure like him, it could
play roles in an attack.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Those of you who are feeling weak.
Speaker 6 (23:06):
Tonight, those of you that don't have a wall of
fire in.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Your body, get some tonight because tomorrow read the people
are gonna be here, and we want you to know
that we will not stand for a lie.
Speaker 13 (23:18):
We will not stand.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
For a lie.
Speaker 16 (23:22):
A figure like that can be used to help recruit
Americans into a belief system that justifies violence against other
Americans to achieve political goals, which is the definition of terrorism.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Chris Jones, give our audience a sense of your role
in this and the Red Cell and what that is.
Speaker 17 (23:46):
The guy you saw talking, Chris Goldsmith, was leading myself
and two other folks. And you know, when we first
got involved with this, the thing he had to set
out to do was, you know, we look at the
far right full time. We do a lot of work,
you know, investigating and addiction stuff, and so we just
had this massive body of evidence of all these ingredients
that you could use that already exist, and so you
(24:07):
know a lot of our prep for this was literally
going through every single you know, not just organizations, but
but you know, mechanical things that you would need to
conduct the types of attacks that happened in the wargame,
you know, and show that like we're not. There's very
little imagination involved in our preparation for this. It was
you know, this already exists, this sentiment already exists, these
(24:28):
organizations already exist. And then our job was really to
you know, not just play out these things occurring in
real time, but you know, generating a lot of misinformation,
disinformation and a lot of it.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
In a very low tech way, like you're sending out
basically the equivalent of a tweet.
Speaker 17 (24:45):
Right right, and there's like a simulated social media space,
and we were you know, when you watch this stuff
in real life, you really kind of unfortunately get a
knack for knowing how to do it yourself. And so yeah,
I mean we had a very low five video editing
software and that was probably the most advanced tool that
we had to use. But you know, we also made
a point to go around to the physical locations and
show that you know, this isn't you know a scenario
(25:08):
that's that someone's cooking up Tom Clancy styles. Is like
we went to this place and showed that this is
how long it would take us to do these things.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
You were actually on Capitol Hill on January sixth, documenting
what was happening.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
What did you see there?
Speaker 17 (25:22):
Oh man? I mean, you know, that was like the
worst day of my life in a lot of ways.
But I think the thing that in hindsight really struck
me was that this was, in a lot of ways,
the perfect storm of you know, most of the folks
were there who were, you know, attacking police, journalists all
this stuff. You know, they're suburban soccer moms and dads,
(25:43):
and the right people had been given a large enough platform,
and the right types of narratives that really emotionally appealed
had been deployed so effectively, and the right financial sources
had been deployed that day to move all of those
people there. That people that if you put a gun
into their hand and said do you want to shoot
the President would say no, whether they'd disagree with or not,
(26:05):
We're more than willing to become violent and use that.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Why is that?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
What did you learn about not the Proud Boys, but
just ordinary people who took part that day? Broke the
windows went in, or at least went in after the
window was broken into the Capitol.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Why did they do that?
Speaker 17 (26:24):
You know, I've looked at this stuff long enough and
have been involved in enough other you know, insurgencies and
stuff like that to know that we're not that special,
right that it does not take a lot to turn
somebody who's never done anything violent into part of a
violent insurrection. You know. I think that.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
You really saw.
Speaker 17 (26:45):
How close we are. And I think my biggest thing
was that, you know, underneath all of these decisions these
people were making, we're very real. You know, we talk
a lot about real and perceived grievances. There's something that
these people were legitimately upset about.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
And the only.
Speaker 17 (26:59):
Me or you know, social way to engage with those
things in political ways, to engage with those things that
they felt they had access to, was waiting for the
President to say, go to the Capitol and tear it down.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Elizabeth Newman Lety bring you you in you.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
You served in the Trump administration as Assistant Secretary for
Counter Terrorism and Threat Prevention in the Department of Homeland Security.
You've got a new book out called Kingdom of Rage,
The Rise of Christian Extremism. In the Path Back to Peace,
you raised alarms about the threat of domestic terrism, What
is the root cause of it?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Do you think?
Speaker 18 (27:34):
So that would take much longer than we have time for.
But in a nutshell, our country has dealt with domestic
terrorism probably since our founding. There's an argument to be
had that even the revolution checks some of the boxes, right.
This terrorism is one form of extremism. Extremism the definition
(27:55):
I use is when an in group perceives that their
success or survival is threatened by an outgroup and hostile
action is necessary. It's that hostile action piece that becomes
so critical to your definition because your in group outgroup
success or survival piece is very normal in our politics.
(28:17):
The other side, this is the most consequential election of
our lifetime. If so and so gets elected, it's the
end of the United States as we know it. I mean,
we're just so used to it, so that such that
when we had an election in twenty twenty and now
again in twenty twenty four, when you have people like
Colonel Vinman saying no, really, it's hard for us to
(28:41):
even hear that this is different than those other political
speeches you've heard.
Speaker 8 (28:46):
In the past.
Speaker 18 (28:48):
But the difference is the hostile action piece that we
have individuals in our country who perceive that threat so
significantly that they're willing to commit some form of hostile action.
On the spect from a hostile action we start down
at the bullying harassment stage, might be non criminals, so
the government's not allowed to go and police that. But
(29:09):
from a community standpoint, we can, as parents, we can,
as educators, we can we can say stop it. That's
not how we deal with our conflict. But that can
pretty quickly escalate into criminal action, actual vandalism of property,
actual intimidation and threats of an individual or an organization,
(29:30):
and then you get into hate crimes, terrorism, genocide being
the extreme end of that spectrum. And we have, i think,
been living in a soup, a toxic soup of extremist
rhetoric for a long time as a country. And then
a permission structure was created some point in the last
ten years that you can take those ideas that yeah,
(29:53):
violence is appropriate sometimes and actually start acting on them.
And to that permission structure, you need a couple of factors.
It's at any given time in our population, there are
going to be any number of individuals that we would
describe as vulnerable to radicalization. But the percentage that actually
(30:17):
radicalize is much much smaller, and the percentage that actually
mobilized to violence is much much much smaller than that.
But in recent years that vulnerable population has swelled and
is huge. The polls, the surveys done by multiple different
outfits academics, anywhere from twenty five percent to forty percent
(30:40):
of the American public believe that violence is justified to
achieve your political aim. That is the definition of terrorism. Now,
if you were to ask somebody that do you think
terrorism is justified? Of course they'd say now, But when
you ask it in kind of this other language, they
start to admit, yeah, yeah, I think that's possible.
Speaker 8 (30:59):
And so we're in a box right now.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
That was former Trump administration Homeland Security official Elizabeth Newman.
In a moment, we'll continue our conversation about the documentary
film Wargame and talk about one of the most powerful
but also dangerous tools in the president's toolbox, the Insurrection Act,
a law from the seventeen nineties that allows the president
to use the military against Americans on US soil. More
(31:25):
of our conversation from Sundance.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Coming up on the middle. This is the Middle. I'm
Jeremy Hobson.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Let's continue our conversation from the Sundance Film Festival in
Utah about the new documentary film Wargame. In it, a
host of elected leaders and military officials had to react
in real time to a January sixth style event, but worse,
because there was a split in military loyalty, some in
the armed forces believe that the loser of the election
was actually the winner. Former Montana Governor Steve Bullet plays
(31:58):
the president, and I asked him who he believed the
enemy was in a situation like that. Was it the
ordinary citizen breaking into the capital, the radicalized blogger sending
out orders online, or the Michael Flynn esque former general
telling members of the military to disobey orders from their
commander in chief.
Speaker 17 (32:18):
I don't know that.
Speaker 11 (32:18):
I was thinking who am I fighting against? But what
are we fighting for?
Speaker 7 (32:23):
Right that?
Speaker 11 (32:24):
At the end of the day, And we even talk
about some in the movie. You have what happened on
the January sixth, But what's going to happen the day after?
I think Elizabeth talk about the in group and the outgroup,
and look, we all many people would want to say
Trump caused all this. I don't believe that I think
Trump was the result. Two thousand and six twenty sixteen,
(32:47):
eighty percent of household saw their income stay flat or
go down. People start thinking, Okay, I do the right thing.
I'm going to live that dream, whatever that is, and
when it's not getting there, that's how you get the
potential for more radicalization. So I looked at it certainly
at a micro level, right that, Here's what's happened in Arizona,
(33:11):
Here's what's happened in Ville Air Force Base, Here's what
the Red cell might be doing. But as we tried
to get a hold of the situation, the premise behind
it is that the election was decided by six tens
a one percent, But it was never oh that forty
nine point four percent of people are bad. It wasn't
(33:33):
about the politics. It was about sort of the institutions,
and then how do we start bridging those institutions once
you get control of the situation.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Elizabeth, what was the scariest thing that came up in
this exercise that you think we need to be worried
about as we head into this coming election.
Speaker 18 (33:52):
Well, the game designers and the Red Cell were pretty realistic,
at least in my understanding of the nature of the threat,
and they took itvantage of I don't want to call
them design flaws. It's just that so many of so
much of the way that our government functions is based
on norms. It's not written into law, it's not written
into policy, and we've experienced in the last eight years
(34:16):
what happens if somebody says I don't want to live
by those norms, and there are consequences If we as
a society decide whether it's down at a low level,
somebody getting upset with the fast food worker and deciding
that violence is the response, you know, that's a norm
violation all the way up to a president saying I
(34:39):
don't have to follow the rules, I am immune to
the laws. That those have consequences. So I think the
While there were many good outcomes of the exercise, and
you'll have to go see the film to learn more
about them, I was still left with this pit in
(34:59):
my stomach that there are a lot of policy questions
left unanswered. There are a lot of places that we
both in the government and then as a community, we
need to be wrestling with this and coming up with
answers before it happens. If you're dealing with it on
the day of, and you don't know what your playbook is,
(35:19):
you're most likely going to lose, or in the way
that I view it, you're most likely going to lose life.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Can I add something to Society's.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
Comment though, I mean, he's right about economic disenfranchisement, but
people have, and let's just admit it, they have made
fear of the other American, the American that doesn't look
like you. That person's getting ahead, that person's taking something
from you, and those people are for that person, and
(35:48):
I'm for you. And in a way that we've never seen,
at least in my lifetime, people who would expouse those beliefs,
whether they are white supremacists, have been invited to the
party because they are a critical piece of a voting
block right now, and that's something that needs to be extinguished.
(36:09):
And so we can't leave just the oververt racism of
what's happening in this country out of our discussion.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
We have one more clip that gets to something that
is really fascinating in this film.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Really the crux of the film. There is a tool
the president.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Has fully legal, also comes with a lot of consequences.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
It's called the insurrection Act.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
It was passed in seventeen ninety two, and it gives
the President of the United States the power to use
the military against civilians on US soil in certain circumstances.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Listen to this. This is going to be a defining
moment of your presidency.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
So the media sports, we have to understand why they
will want to give command and control we the president.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
The Insurrection Act is a trap.
Speaker 16 (36:58):
We need to have a further discertion, the find a
moment in their governorship.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Then we have what President, Your audience is the American public,
and they want to know that Congress is coming back
to certify. So we do have to.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Come into agreement here. Because time is moving on.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
You have to decide which way you're going to want
to move, mister President, ten minutes remaining.
Speaker 8 (37:23):
The President is sweaty.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
He's going to have to make a decision.
Speaker 10 (37:28):
Mister President, Are you invoking the Insurrection Act or federalizing
National Guard?
Speaker 2 (37:31):
What neither has happened yet. Statement, I'm not asking you,
I'm asking the president. Are you doing either?
Speaker 18 (37:47):
Mister President?
Speaker 1 (37:48):
President, President, President Governor Bullock, Mister President, easy day, wasn't it?
Did it make you wonder whether you really wanted to
run for president back in the day. What was going
through your mind as you were considering whether to invoke
the Insurrection Act.
Speaker 11 (38:06):
Well, first, a lot of voices, as you could say,
I mean Jack had said at some point the fog
of war, and you didn't have all of the information
along the way. As a governor, you're the commander in
chief of your National Guard, had got to work with
folks like General Saine on a regular basis, But trying
(38:26):
to get a hold and control of the situation while
recognizing that like, look, that's the nuclear option when you're
sending in US military against your own citizens when half
of the country didn't even think you were properly elected. Like,
(38:48):
once you go there, you can't put that back in
the bottle. So it was both thinking about how do
you control the situation and then what do we do
the next day to start hopefully he lean this country.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Heidi Hidekamp, you were a senior advisor to the president.
What were you weighing as you thought about how to
advise him on whether to use the Insurrection Act?
Speaker 5 (39:10):
I think when you are trying to defend democracy and
you take the most extreme power that government has, which
would have been the Insurrection Act basically declaring military law.
Then you need to think about whether you're actually defending
democracy or whether you're just taking an easy way out.
And the other thing is, and you will see it
(39:32):
when you see the movie. We had incomplete information on
what whether the governors were actually deploying the resources that
they already had at their ready.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
And which is realistic probably what would actually happen.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
Absolutely, and we kept saying, get the governor on the phone.
You know, we're trying to trying to parse through that
whole system. And the interesting thing about this exercise is
Steve and I both come from state government. We were
both attorneys general. That's really where my heart is. Even
though I served in the Senate, I see myself more
(40:08):
as a state official. And I think we looked at
this through a lens of state government and state responsibility
in each one of these locations and the value of
the federalist system, federalism system that we have where states
have that autonomy, and so to take that away from
states was another huge factor that led to recommendations Governor.
Speaker 11 (40:32):
Block, I guess and without sort of saying how it
all lends. One of the things that I was heartened
with through the exercise too, was like you had incredible military,
former four star generals involved, and you know, and part
of you might think, okay that a four star general
(40:55):
would say everything looks like a nail and we're the hammer.
How thoughtful they were in providing counsel to us as well.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
General thing.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Yeah, if you were in that situation at that moment
and the President said we're invoking the Insurrection Act, as
a person.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
In the military, what do you do? You just have
to do what he says.
Speaker 13 (41:20):
Well, so that is where I have to really stand
on principle, which I think I did in the exercise, right.
I really wanted to make sure that we understood what
that meant. And I think for you know, when you
get a chance to see wargame, I want you to
understand what that really means to you as a citizen.
That means that you're taking someone like us and you're
(41:42):
asking us to go and fight against our families, our friends,
our aunts, our uncles, our neighbors. That happens abroad, it
doesn't happen here in the US, not anymore. And so
that is an nuclear option that you've got to be
prepared for the consequences. When someone pulls that card, it
(42:08):
has long standing, far more consequences than you can imagine.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Alex Vinmin.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
It has already been reported that if President Trump were
to win again that he is advisors have said that
he is considering using the Insurrection Act on the first
day if there are mass protests.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Do you think that he would do that?
Speaker 14 (42:31):
I think he'd want to set the conditions for being
able to justify the Insurrection Act, I think, frankly, in
this scenario, I think the Red Cell was doing everything
they could to force the hand of the President and
have him invoke the Insurrection Act and use that as
justification for widespread violence. I think Donald Trump would be
(42:51):
very eager to launch this kind of situation for two
different reasons. One because he gives him a chance toek
retribution against his enemies, and two is that it gives
him some justification for holding on to power, doing the
thing that he's already declared that he wants to do,
which is to become a dictator for a single.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Day, but as only our day one.
Speaker 14 (43:13):
Yeah, as we understand, if it's if you're a dictator
on day one, then you're a dictator forever until you're removed.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Jesse Moss.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
One of the interesting things that we haven't talked about
is that this was filmed just blocks away from the Capitol.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
What a year after January? Two years after January sixth?
What was that like?
Speaker 9 (43:34):
I think we have these ghosts that we live with.
They're everywhere. They're in our hearts, our psychees. And the
very hotel where we filmed was a hotel that insurrectionists
stayed in on January sixth. It's the hotel we reclaimed
for democracy. That's how I like to think about it.
I think the exercise exhuoms ghosts and allows us to
look at them and confront our fears, but in what
(43:56):
I think is not an inflammatory and frightening way, A
little bit frightening. I think in a constructive way, because
it's all of these people who I think want to
protect and defend democracy, and so I think we do
confront those ghosts, but in a very cathartic way. We
need to do that.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Tony Gribber, what do you want an ordinary person who
sees this film to take away from?
Speaker 2 (44:19):
What are they supposed to do with this information?
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Obviously, if you were to play this in a room
in Washington with policymakers or people in the military, better.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Think about this, better be careful of that. But what
about just a regular person.
Speaker 10 (44:31):
Well, you know, the challenge for us was to take
this all in and make a film. So the film
has to provide an emotional journey for its audience, right,
That was important. And it has to deploy empathy because
if an audience doesn't feel anything, they're never moved to action.
Speaker 14 (44:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
So they had to care about all these people.
Speaker 10 (44:50):
They had to feel what it would be like to
be sitting at that table, to be in President Hotham's shoes,
weighing the consequences of making these decisions.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
So it's my hope that.
Speaker 10 (45:01):
We have a beautiful broad theatrical release followed by a
really healthy life on the streaming platform, and that people
can see this movie with community, right, they can sit
in a movie theater next to other people and feel
the community, right, And that the film sparks conversation. And
(45:21):
it's not a monolith, right, it's not suppression of different
points of view, it's a launching point.
Speaker 9 (45:28):
I think there's probably a lot of disagreement on this
stage about particular political issues, and you know, we come
from all different perspectives on the spectrum, but I think
we do have common concerns and values, and I think
that's what I saw in what Chanessa organized and the
different backgrounds of the people involved in this that I
wanted to be a part of, to witness, to try
to capture, because I think that's a powerful lesson for
(45:50):
all of us.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Alex Finman, Yeah, so.
Speaker 14 (45:52):
I think this is going to actually tap into a
zeitgeist of the moment. Unfortunately, we're now in the world
where American public, large swaths of the American public have
woken up to the dangers, have shaken off complacency about
the security of our democracy. I think that played out
in the way elections unfolded in twenty twenty twenty twenty two,
(46:12):
this off cycle election in twenty twenty three, people are
voting on the basis of preserving democracy, and I think
this film is going to strike at a moment where
one six is still fresh in people's minds. We're coming
up on a presidential election and people can reflect on
the fact that we're still in harm's way, We're still
in danger, and we need to take charge of our democracy.
Vote accordingly to preserve our form of government.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Elizabeth Newman.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Do you think that the lessons have been learned in
Washington to be prepared for what's what could happen.
Speaker 18 (46:43):
Washington is having a hard time getting anything done right now,
so I had hope that we might see some laws
passed to address everything from the vulnerabilities demonstrated on January
sixth to our domestic terrorism architecture, which a whole other conversation,
(47:03):
but is woefully equipped when you compare how we're able
to go after international terrorism. So there's vulnerabilities in our
structure that have not been fixed. I do think that
the Executive Branch is much more attuned to domestic terrorism.
(47:24):
They've done a lot of work to better understand it,
to better use the tools that we do have to
go after domestic terrorists. But it is really fraught for
the federal government to try to address this mass political
violence problem we have. That it goes to what the
governor mentioned. When the federal government does something, it is
(47:48):
perceived as the Democrats are doing something to the Republicans.
It is blue state against red state. Even if the
civil servance in the Executive Branch many of them are
Republican and conservative, but we see demonization of our law
(48:09):
enforcement agencies. We see accusations that the Department of Justice
has been politicized to go after political enemies. So that's
the operating space that the executive branch is in right now.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. And so
they're doing the best they can, but they recognize that
(48:30):
if they overstep, it actually makes the problem worse.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
That was former Trump Administration Homeland Security official Elizabeth Newman,
one of the participants in the new documentary film Wargame,
which premiered at the Sundance.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
Film Festival in Utah.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
We'll link you to more about the film at Listen
Toothmiddle dot com, where you can share your thoughts as well.
Are you worried about another January sixth or a split
in military allegiances?
Speaker 2 (48:54):
As always, you can leave us a.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
Message at eight four four four Middle that is eight
four four four six four three three five three, or
you can write to us at listen to Theemiddle dot com.
So next week we're back with another live show as
South Carolina gets ready to hold its Republican presidential primary.
Only a handful of states have voted so far, but
many on the right would have you believe former President
(49:16):
Trump is already the party's nominee, so we want to
know is it time to change the way we nominate
our presidential candidates.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
That's our topic next week.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
You can call in at eight four four four Middle
anytime and leave a message or call in live next week.
The Middle is brought to you by Longknok Media, distributed
by Illinois Public Media in Urbana, Illinois, and produced by
Joeann Jennings, Harrison Patino, John Barth, and Danny Alexander. Our
technical director is Jason Croft. Our theme music was composed
(49:46):
by Andrew Haig. Thanks to Nashville Public Radio, iHeartMedia, and
the more than four hundred public radio stations that are
making it possible for people across the country to listen
to The Middle, I'm Jeremy Hobson.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
Talk to you next week. Between the
Speaker 10 (50:29):
Scop
Welcome to the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. We are now
less than nine months away from a presidential election that
could well be a rematch between President Biden and former
President Trump. The former president, though, has never conceded to
the current one. The transfer of power happened just weeks
after the US capital was stormed on January sixth, twenty
(00:26):
twenty one, as Congress was preparing to certify the results
of the election.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
So what if.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Something like that were to happen again? No concession, claims
of fraud, an attack on the capital, but this time
a split in military allegiances as well. That is the
topic of the new documentary film War Game, which premiered
last month at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
In it, a number of former military and government officials
(00:53):
played different roles in a real time simulation of a
January sixth style disruptionident.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I do think is going to potentially escalate rapidly.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
If we overreact.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
I think it's going to come back and it'll haunt
your entire presidency.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
Well, we want to be ready if we need to react.
My understanding is they've already breached to the point of
being trespassers. I think that what you need, mister President.
You know, with all due deference to the to the secretary,
and I completely understand what you're saying. I think what
the public saw in twenty twenty one was underreaction. I
(01:29):
don't think anyone is anticipating we need the full strength
of the military, but we have to respond so we
don't have a repeat of what happened in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
So that's We'll get to our conversation with a number
of people associated with the film in a moment. But
first to your comments about whether what happened on January sixth,
twenty twenty one, should keep former President Trump off the
ballot this year. We asked you that on last week's show,
as the Supreme Court considered the same question, and we
got more voicemails than any show we've done so far.
Speaker 6 (02:01):
My name is Michael Rowe. I'm calling from Artsville, Tennessee.
Whether Trump should be on the ballot or not. I'm
not affiliated with any political party and I am active duty.
Why not just let the states decide?
Speaker 7 (02:14):
Hi, my name is Maria Mason. I'm calling from Clearwater, Florida,
regarding Trump being allowed on the ballot. My answer is
a resounding hell no.
Speaker 6 (02:25):
My name's Paul for Pennsylvania, and I believe that Donald
Trump should be on the ballot. Let the people decide
this election.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
We'll see how that case goes in the Supreme Court.
Thanks so much to everyone who called in. So now
to this week's topic, the new documentary War Game, which
puts a number of former military and political leaders in
a simulation about another January sixth, and they all play
different roles. Former Montana Governor Steve Bullock plays the president
who has just won a close election, but his rival
(02:58):
says the election was stolen. The film was directed by
Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss and was the brainchild of
the Vet Voice Foundation, whose CEO, Genessa Goldbeck, is a
Marine Corps veteran herself. I started the conversation by asking
Goldbeck where the idea for wargame came from.
Speaker 8 (03:16):
We had three retired generals Pennanoped and the Washington Post
after January sixth, twenty twenty one, and they were all
advisors to our foundation. We are a national, nonpartisan organization
that represents over a million and a half veterans and
military families. Across the country, and one of their recommendations
was for the administration to do an exercise like this.
This is a very standard way of training in the military,
(03:38):
to do an exercise where you game out situations and
vulnerabilities that you could be exposed to. And we realized
we had the network to put on an exercise like
this ourselves, to do it in a non partisan manner,
to involve administration officials from the last five presidential administrations
from both parties, people who are deeply concerned, because the
reality is that, as I said in the clip, the
(03:59):
alarm are flashing red. There is an increasing amount of
extremism in this country. And the military is a microcosm
of our society. So when you have folks who are
well trained, who understand how to seed violence and create
discord and division, and they also have military training, it
becomes an extremely challenging and frightening scenario. So we really
(04:21):
wanted to see what happens if there's another contested election,
But this time rogue elements of the military participated.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
And I said, you're a Marine Corps veteran.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Is there something in your background that you saw people
that you thought maybe they would go rogue in this
way or is this just something that a fear that existed.
Speaker 8 (04:39):
Well, we know that military veterans were overrepresented in the
folks who participated in the insurrection on January sixth. We
know that extremism is a rising problem in our active
duty forces. There have been multiple studies that examine this issue.
You know, when you're serving in the military, you're serving
in a nonpartisan manner. You may have your own political
beliefs and values. That's one of the great beauties of
(05:01):
the institution is that people from all walks of life
can come together and achieve a common cause. But when
we have these elements in our society that are now
believing that actually committing violence and trying to overthrow the
duly elected US government is patriotic, that's a pretty big
challenge for us to tackle. And I think the military
(05:22):
has acknowledged that it is an issue, but there are
many things that they still could do.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Jesse Moss, you're one of the directors and a producer
as well. Why make this into a film? Who is
it for?
Speaker 9 (05:32):
Well, first and foremost, to confront questions that I have.
That's where I start as a filmmaker. How do I
make sense of what happened on January sixth and what
is our political future? Bringing together these experienced public servants,
they were asked to improvise their roles and their words
based on their lived experience. And that was the exciting
(05:53):
combination that we saw. This was documentary, live, improvisational theater,
dystopian science fiction, and political three thriller all at once.
And what kind of film would it be? What kind
of story could we tell? And could we invite people
to a conversation about what we all care about, which
is our country, our institutions, our values.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Tony Gerber, you're also a director of this film. The
issue of how to portray January sixth has become very polarizing.
Was it an insurrection? Was it a rebellion? Was it
an event? Was it, as Donald Trump says, a tourist
visit gone wrong. He's now referring, though, to people who
are convicted as hostages January six hostages. How do you
(06:35):
keep this film from being seen as political when such
a large portion of this country doesn't even want to
think about January six anymore.
Speaker 10 (06:43):
Yeah, that's a good question. Well, I can tell you
that you know, famously, Francis Ford. Coppolaz said that a
movie gets written three times, first time in the writing,
second time in the shooting, third time in the editing.
In the case of our documentary, the fourth time will
be when it's released into the world. But I can
tell you that in making this film, we really leaned
away from the potential for the story of this war
(07:07):
game and our film to be spun by QAnon voices,
for example. It's important that this film brings people together.
It's not a look back at the last January sixth,
it's a look forward, and it's a film that's really
intended not just to remind folks of a potential nightmare,
(07:27):
but to also bring hope right and belief in our
political system and our institutions.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It is a very different time now, though, than it
was when you made this film. Donald Trump is almost
certain to be the nominee of the Republican Party again
for president. He has said he should be immune from
prosecution even if he crosses a line. He said he
wants to be a dictator on day one. Do you
think the film should be seen in a different light
(07:55):
now than when you filmed it.
Speaker 9 (07:58):
I wish that it were less relevant in some way.
But it's true that Trump was on the periphery when
we began this project. But we know that the threats
that this exercise in this film confront go beyond one person.
They are a kind of cancer in our country and
a division that you talked about. And I think that
regardless of the outcome of the twenty twenty four election,
(08:20):
this is a problem that persists within the military and
the military's role its functioned as this bulwark of our democracy.
Something we take for granted is something we have to
talk about to foresee the unforseeable. It's sometimes hard to
look at those things, but we have a responsibility to
and it's our job as filmmakers to find it in
an inventive and creative way. To bring you to that conversation.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Governor Steve Bullock, you're what I think we could call
a moderate former governor of Montana. What is your sense
of how the average American people in your state view
the events of January sixth and how worried they are
about it today.
Speaker 11 (08:55):
Just a few weeks ago, there was a poll nationally
it said a quarter of Americans think that January sixth
was incited by the FBI. You look at it right now,
there's one hundred and seventy one members of Congress, one
third representing thirty seven states that say there are election deniers.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Well, something like sixty six percent of Republicans in the
Iowa Caucus has believed that Biden was not a legitimate president.
Speaker 11 (09:23):
So yeah, where are we today in Montana or all
across the country. We're at a very dangerous point, and
I think the idea of the film isn't to look backwards,
is to look forward.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
The notion that.
Speaker 11 (09:36):
Literally twenty five percent of Americans think the FBI created
this in January sixth is such a challenge that needs
to be discussed, and it doesn't need to be discussed
necessarily just in Washington. C right needs to be discussed
in communities all across red and blue, because this isn't
about politics, right, This is about a country and norms
(10:01):
and a rule of law that we all expect.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
What do you think, Senator Heidi Hydekemp, you also would
be considered a moderate. You represented North Dakota and the Senate.
Are your neighbors in North Dakota worried about this?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Should they be?
Speaker 12 (10:15):
No?
Speaker 5 (10:15):
I think that one of the reasons why this film
is so important is denial. The country's in denial, right,
so we deny that it even happened. That was like
a tourism problem that was incited by the FBI. But
these people are hostages, and so there's no consistency in
how we're looking at it, and that's why it is
(10:37):
so important. We found out that after the January sixth
committee hearings that people started understanding and appreciating because they
saw it on television prime time and they watched it
and it reignited the feelings that they felt on January sixth,
which was horror about what was happening in our country.
(10:58):
That then gives there's a period of gaslighting that goes
on that really wasn't that bad.
Speaker 13 (11:04):
Those folks are patriots, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
We have to have.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
Events like this movie to remind people. So that's why
the movie is important. The biggest enemy of protection of
the democracy is people saying can never happen again. I'm
not saying it's probable that it could happen again. Is
it possible? Absolutely? When people believe that somehow along the
(11:29):
way something has been taken from them, that there is
a rig system, and they can't even appreciate the fairness
of their elections. I want to make just one point
of optimism. I watched the twenty twenty two midterms holding
my breath because a lot of the people on the
ballot were selected by Donald Trump. And the question was,
(11:52):
were those people, when they lost, going to deny the
election results? All but one they all conceded, Well, that's
a bit of optimism. And so when we create the
idea that the norm has to be established of understanding
and realizing that our elections are fair, they achieve a
(12:13):
result that promotes democracy. But if we deny that, it
could happen again. Guess what we're unprepared for? What could happen?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
That was former North Dakota Senator Heidi Hidekamp speaking with
me as part of a panel at the Sundance.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
She plays the president's senior advisor in the documentary film Wargame.
In just a moment, we'll hear from more members of
the panel, including retired Army lieutenant colonel and Trump whistleblower
Alexander Vinman, about the issue of a split in military loyalty.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Stay with us. More of the Middle coming home.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
This is the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. Over the last
several months, we've tackled a number of topics, from immigration
to inflation, to abortion to artificial intelligence. All of those
topics have come up and will come up in this
presidential election year. But the fact that we vote on
those issues and can have a say in what our
government does about them is based on the idea of
(13:23):
a democracy that listens to its citizens and respects their
will at the ballot box. The film Wargame puts former
military and government officials in a simulation in which there's
another January sixth style riot at the US Capitol and
there are split allegiances in the military. In one part
of the film, rogue members of the military take over
(13:44):
McDill Air Force Base in Florida as the US capital
is being attacked. Former Senator Doug Jones, who plays the
Attorney General, alerts Steve Bullock, who plays the President.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Mister President, we're picking up intercepted chatter among military that
they're taking what happened at mcdial and now they're trying
to spread that to other bases.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
How many soldiers are McDill twelve? They have gone rogue
is what I understood, not that many.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
These are twelve, you know, gun hole killers out there
who decided to take it in their own hands.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
So you got two four star generals down there.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
The concern we're getting is the chatter that this may spread,
and y'all need.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
To be aware of that.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
As we continued our conversation at the Sundance Film Festival
in Utah, I asked retired Army Major General Linda Singh,
who plays the chief of the National Guard Bureau in
the film, how realistic a split in the military is.
Speaker 13 (14:37):
The answer is, you know, the military is a microcosm
and we heard ten Essa's say that of society. So
for us to think that it could not happen in
the military, then we're putting our heads in the sand,
right We're just saying we're definitely in denial. And I
think you know what we have to pay attention to
is that, you know, we recruit from everywhere in the country,
(14:59):
and so if bringing in individuals that come from all
walks of life, you have to understand that we're going
to get individuals in the forces that will represent things
that we wouldn't see just bringing them in from an
enlisted perspective right when we bring them in to the door,
and so even you know, when I think about, you know,
how we have this exercise and how things were playing out.
(15:20):
You know, I was at the forefront of the civil
disturbance in Baltimore. We talked about this very issue. We
talked about what was going on across the country. So
to think that you know, it's not going to happen,
that it doesn't exist, I think that we're missing the point.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
What happens when that does happen? Is there? How is
that dealt with?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
When there's when you find out that somebody is being
disloyal in the military.
Speaker 13 (15:41):
Well, I mean, you know, first off, we do have
systems in place, but this is where true leadership has
to come into place, right, I mean, this is not
about you know, oh I have to protect my soldiers,
I have to protect my airmen. No, this is where
true leadership comes into place, and leaders within the organization.
You need to tamp down on that very quickly. If
you don't tamp down on it and deal with it,
(16:02):
then it is going to be pervasive and it will
ruin just the overall kind of togetherness, teamwork, everything within
the organization. And so what I think is really really
challenging is sometimes leaders are afraid to tamp down on
it because I want to get my recruitment numbers, and
we have to say, Okay, are we going to let
this actually run rampant through our organization or are we
(16:24):
going to worry about recruitment numbers.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
So is that a bigger problem now?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Is there a bigger problem with recruitment so people are
being brought in that may be a problem down the road.
Speaker 13 (16:33):
I think it's a bigger problem now because we've not
only seen where they're allowing to be able to kind
of share this voice and show up in places where
they shouldn't even in uniform, right, but even through the pandemic,
we've watched uniform members say well, I'm not going to
get a vaccine. I'm sorry. The military is the most
vaccinated force there is, which you're not going to get
a vaccine. And so I think that we're seeing it
(16:53):
more and more now and we need to deal with
how are we going to recruit, how are we going
to retain, and how are we going discipline? And we
can't be afraid to kind of talk about those things.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
But of course in this film and in this exercise,
it all has to be done very very quickly.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
You don't have a long time to figure that out.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Alex Vinman, you are a retired Army lieutenant colonel who
was director for European Affairs for the National Security Council.
Do you think that any sort of coup style split
is likely in today's climate?
Speaker 14 (17:24):
So, I think we came up with a scenario that
we thought was about as realistic as you can get.
If we look at the numbers of folks that were
pushed out of the military for refusing to take their vaccinations,
there were four thousand of those. There was another portion
that ended up taking the vaccines, but they were very
reluctant about it and have now have hard feelings and
are probably further radicalized than they were four years ago
(17:48):
when this first unfolded. I think the fact is that
it doesn't really take a huge number of military to
cause chaos. We looked mainly at national guard units, reserves,
folks that are really part of the tapestry of of
their societies more so than the folks that are active
duty day to day. Serving in that kind of environment
between law enforcement, reserves, national guard I think there is
(18:09):
a real possibility of radicalized elements coming up in states
and attempting to interfere with certification of elections. And then
even I think within the national the active duty force,
that's a threat. Now, I am a big believer in
the values, the army values and the integrity of the military,
and the vast majority will live up to their obligations
(18:29):
ninety seven, ninety eight, ninety nine percent will do that.
But it doesn't really take a huge amount, and we
need to be prepared for it. That's why this wargame
was so critically important to harden us for a future scenario.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Is it about the information that they're getting, I mean,
is it just about disinformation, misinformation that is making them,
when they've decided to go into a career in the military,
be disloyal to the constitution.
Speaker 14 (18:54):
So that's that's why I think this may be at
least my perception is that this is a bigger threat.
And then National Guard and the Reserve, where you're not
your day in, day out life is not within the
institution of the military, which does have kind of a moderating,
kind of homogenizing effect. You don't get as many radicals
coming out of that segment there are, but just maybe
(19:16):
not as many now. The folks that do this on
a less habitual basis, they're part of the they're communities
that are radicalized, they're part of the information loops that
are being targeted by the MAGA movement by foreign empties
on a day to day basis, and don't have that
moderating force from the rest of the military. Those folks
(19:39):
are just susceptible and from my standpoint, producing something like wargame,
the exercise that we did, the reports that we wrote,
sharing that with the government is important, but it's frankly
much more important to be able to share this with
society at large, not just the interested parties in Washington,
d C. But frankly with the rest of the country
(19:59):
that have different perceptions and needs to be alert to
these threats.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
A lot of our listeners know who you are.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
You were seen as a hero by many when you
blew the whistle on former President Trump and his phone
call to the Ukrainian president.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
You've now been vilified on the right.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
You are an actual victim of this polarization in this country.
How did that play into your experience in doing this
war game?
Speaker 14 (20:25):
So I've been part of the Voice Foundation and Vote
Vets really just about since the moment I left the
military service. And the reason I made that decision in
the first place is I was in uniform on active duty.
I was vilified and demonized by the Trump administration and
the far right, and I couldn't really do anything because
in the military, I'm bound by the uniform Code of
(20:47):
Military Justice. I couldn't defend myself. Once I was forced
out by the Trump administration, the gloves were off and
they did that to themselves. So immediately I took the
opportunity to punch back, wrote about my experiences with the
Trump administration. My wife and I ended up participating in
some ads indicating the threat that Donald Trump poses to
(21:11):
our democracy. Tried to be impactful in twenty twenty, and
I see it as a commitment to make sure that
other public servants are not demonized and nulified the way
I am. And I've been given a voice, and I'm
going to use it in a constructive way.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Simple, Chris Jones, you are also a former marine.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
You actually place someone in this film who is not
loyal to the Constitution. Let's take a listen to another
clip from the film and talk about it.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
On the other.
Speaker 12 (21:43):
Side, a new video has been released on social media
by the heads of the so called Order of Columbus,
the extremist group which has a long challenge the legitimacy
of the US government. Retired Army Lieutenant General Roger Simms,
who the Order refers to as the Patriarch, is claiming
to have evidence of a stolen election, and the group
(22:05):
is backing those members of the military who have appeared
to have gone rogue. Now this video was released just
a short time ago. We're going to play it for you.
A word of warning, some of what you'll hear is disturbing.
Speaker 15 (22:18):
We have undertaken an extensive investigation of the twenty twenty
four election, and it is Hatham who is attempting a
coup to consolidate his illegitimate power and eliminate our God
given freedoms.
Speaker 16 (22:33):
So the Red Cell is motivated not just by a
failed candidate who's trying to steal the presidency, but also
by a religious figure, someone with military experience who comes
with a lot of credibility, like former General Michael Flynn,
a convicted felon who spent his career fighting against insurgencies.
(22:58):
It is not unrealistic that figure like him, it could
play roles in an attack.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Those of you who are feeling weak.
Speaker 6 (23:06):
Tonight, those of you that don't have a wall of
fire in.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Your body, get some tonight because tomorrow read the people
are gonna be here, and we want you to know
that we will not stand for a lie.
Speaker 13 (23:18):
We will not stand.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
For a lie.
Speaker 16 (23:22):
A figure like that can be used to help recruit
Americans into a belief system that justifies violence against other
Americans to achieve political goals, which is the definition of terrorism.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Chris Jones, give our audience a sense of your role
in this and the Red Cell and what that is.
Speaker 17 (23:46):
The guy you saw talking, Chris Goldsmith, was leading myself
and two other folks. And you know, when we first
got involved with this, the thing he had to set
out to do was, you know, we look at the
far right full time. We do a lot of work,
you know, investigating and addiction stuff, and so we just
had this massive body of evidence of all these ingredients
that you could use that already exist, and so you
(24:07):
know a lot of our prep for this was literally
going through every single you know, not just organizations, but
but you know, mechanical things that you would need to
conduct the types of attacks that happened in the wargame,
you know, and show that like we're not. There's very
little imagination involved in our preparation for this. It was
you know, this already exists, this sentiment already exists, these
(24:28):
organizations already exist. And then our job was really to
you know, not just play out these things occurring in
real time, but you know, generating a lot of misinformation,
disinformation and a lot of it.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
In a very low tech way, like you're sending out
basically the equivalent of a tweet.
Speaker 17 (24:45):
Right right, and there's like a simulated social media space,
and we were you know, when you watch this stuff
in real life, you really kind of unfortunately get a
knack for knowing how to do it yourself. And so yeah,
I mean we had a very low five video editing
software and that was probably the most advanced tool that
we had to use. But you know, we also made
a point to go around to the physical locations and
show that you know, this isn't you know a scenario
(25:08):
that's that someone's cooking up Tom Clancy styles. Is like
we went to this place and showed that this is
how long it would take us to do these things.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
You were actually on Capitol Hill on January sixth, documenting
what was happening.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
What did you see there?
Speaker 17 (25:22):
Oh man? I mean, you know, that was like the
worst day of my life in a lot of ways.
But I think the thing that in hindsight really struck
me was that this was, in a lot of ways,
the perfect storm of you know, most of the folks
were there who were, you know, attacking police, journalists all
this stuff. You know, they're suburban soccer moms and dads,
(25:43):
and the right people had been given a large enough platform,
and the right types of narratives that really emotionally appealed
had been deployed so effectively, and the right financial sources
had been deployed that day to move all of those
people there. That people that if you put a gun
into their hand and said do you want to shoot
the President would say no, whether they'd disagree with or not,
(26:05):
We're more than willing to become violent and use that.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Why is that?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
What did you learn about not the Proud Boys, but
just ordinary people who took part that day? Broke the
windows went in, or at least went in after the
window was broken into the Capitol.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Why did they do that?
Speaker 17 (26:24):
You know, I've looked at this stuff long enough and
have been involved in enough other you know, insurgencies and
stuff like that to know that we're not that special,
right that it does not take a lot to turn
somebody who's never done anything violent into part of a
violent insurrection. You know. I think that.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
You really saw.
Speaker 17 (26:45):
How close we are. And I think my biggest thing
was that, you know, underneath all of these decisions these
people were making, we're very real. You know, we talk
a lot about real and perceived grievances. There's something that
these people were legitimately upset about.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
And the only.
Speaker 17 (26:59):
Me or you know, social way to engage with those
things in political ways, to engage with those things that
they felt they had access to, was waiting for the
President to say, go to the Capitol and tear it down.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Elizabeth Newman Lety bring you you in you.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
You served in the Trump administration as Assistant Secretary for
Counter Terrorism and Threat Prevention in the Department of Homeland Security.
You've got a new book out called Kingdom of Rage,
The Rise of Christian Extremism. In the Path Back to Peace,
you raised alarms about the threat of domestic terrism, What
is the root cause of it?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Do you think?
Speaker 18 (27:34):
So that would take much longer than we have time for.
But in a nutshell, our country has dealt with domestic
terrorism probably since our founding. There's an argument to be
had that even the revolution checks some of the boxes, right.
This terrorism is one form of extremism. Extremism the definition
(27:55):
I use is when an in group perceives that their
success or survival is threatened by an outgroup and hostile
action is necessary. It's that hostile action piece that becomes
so critical to your definition because your in group outgroup
success or survival piece is very normal in our politics.
(28:17):
The other side, this is the most consequential election of
our lifetime. If so and so gets elected, it's the
end of the United States as we know it. I mean,
we're just so used to it, so that such that
when we had an election in twenty twenty and now
again in twenty twenty four, when you have people like
Colonel Vinman saying no, really, it's hard for us to
(28:41):
even hear that this is different than those other political
speeches you've heard.
Speaker 8 (28:46):
In the past.
Speaker 18 (28:48):
But the difference is the hostile action piece that we
have individuals in our country who perceive that threat so
significantly that they're willing to commit some form of hostile action.
On the spect from a hostile action we start down
at the bullying harassment stage, might be non criminals, so
the government's not allowed to go and police that. But
(29:09):
from a community standpoint, we can, as parents, we can,
as educators, we can we can say stop it. That's
not how we deal with our conflict. But that can
pretty quickly escalate into criminal action, actual vandalism of property,
actual intimidation and threats of an individual or an organization,
(29:30):
and then you get into hate crimes, terrorism, genocide being
the extreme end of that spectrum. And we have, i think,
been living in a soup, a toxic soup of extremist
rhetoric for a long time as a country. And then
a permission structure was created some point in the last
ten years that you can take those ideas that yeah,
(29:53):
violence is appropriate sometimes and actually start acting on them.
And to that permission structure, you need a couple of factors.
It's at any given time in our population, there are
going to be any number of individuals that we would
describe as vulnerable to radicalization. But the percentage that actually
(30:17):
radicalize is much much smaller, and the percentage that actually
mobilized to violence is much much much smaller than that.
But in recent years that vulnerable population has swelled and
is huge. The polls, the surveys done by multiple different
outfits academics, anywhere from twenty five percent to forty percent
(30:40):
of the American public believe that violence is justified to
achieve your political aim. That is the definition of terrorism. Now,
if you were to ask somebody that do you think
terrorism is justified? Of course they'd say now, But when
you ask it in kind of this other language, they
start to admit, yeah, yeah, I think that's possible.
Speaker 8 (30:59):
And so we're in a box right now.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
That was former Trump administration Homeland Security official Elizabeth Newman.
In a moment, we'll continue our conversation about the documentary
film Wargame and talk about one of the most powerful
but also dangerous tools in the president's toolbox, the Insurrection Act,
a law from the seventeen nineties that allows the president
to use the military against Americans on US soil. More
(31:25):
of our conversation from Sundance.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Coming up on the middle. This is the Middle. I'm
Jeremy Hobson.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Let's continue our conversation from the Sundance Film Festival in
Utah about the new documentary film Wargame. In it, a
host of elected leaders and military officials had to react
in real time to a January sixth style event, but worse,
because there was a split in military loyalty, some in
the armed forces believe that the loser of the election
was actually the winner. Former Montana Governor Steve Bullet plays
(31:58):
the president, and I asked him who he believed the
enemy was in a situation like that. Was it the
ordinary citizen breaking into the capital, the radicalized blogger sending
out orders online, or the Michael Flynn esque former general
telling members of the military to disobey orders from their
commander in chief.
Speaker 17 (32:18):
I don't know that.
Speaker 11 (32:18):
I was thinking who am I fighting against? But what
are we fighting for?
Speaker 7 (32:23):
Right that?
Speaker 11 (32:24):
At the end of the day, And we even talk
about some in the movie. You have what happened on
the January sixth, But what's going to happen the day after?
I think Elizabeth talk about the in group and the outgroup,
and look, we all many people would want to say
Trump caused all this. I don't believe that I think
Trump was the result. Two thousand and six twenty sixteen,
(32:47):
eighty percent of household saw their income stay flat or
go down. People start thinking, Okay, I do the right thing.
I'm going to live that dream, whatever that is, and
when it's not getting there, that's how you get the
potential for more radicalization. So I looked at it certainly
at a micro level, right that, Here's what's happened in Arizona,
(33:11):
Here's what's happened in Ville Air Force Base, Here's what
the Red cell might be doing. But as we tried
to get a hold of the situation, the premise behind
it is that the election was decided by six tens
a one percent, But it was never oh that forty
nine point four percent of people are bad. It wasn't
(33:33):
about the politics. It was about sort of the institutions,
and then how do we start bridging those institutions once
you get control of the situation.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Elizabeth, what was the scariest thing that came up in
this exercise that you think we need to be worried
about as we head into this coming election.
Speaker 18 (33:52):
Well, the game designers and the Red Cell were pretty realistic,
at least in my understanding of the nature of the threat,
and they took itvantage of I don't want to call
them design flaws. It's just that so many of so
much of the way that our government functions is based
on norms. It's not written into law, it's not written
into policy, and we've experienced in the last eight years
(34:16):
what happens if somebody says I don't want to live
by those norms, and there are consequences If we as
a society decide whether it's down at a low level,
somebody getting upset with the fast food worker and deciding
that violence is the response, you know, that's a norm
violation all the way up to a president saying I
(34:39):
don't have to follow the rules, I am immune to
the laws. That those have consequences. So I think the
While there were many good outcomes of the exercise, and
you'll have to go see the film to learn more
about them, I was still left with this pit in
(34:59):
my stomach that there are a lot of policy questions
left unanswered. There are a lot of places that we
both in the government and then as a community, we
need to be wrestling with this and coming up with
answers before it happens. If you're dealing with it on
the day of, and you don't know what your playbook is,
(35:19):
you're most likely going to lose, or in the way
that I view it, you're most likely going to lose life.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Can I add something to Society's.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
Comment though, I mean, he's right about economic disenfranchisement, but
people have, and let's just admit it, they have made
fear of the other American, the American that doesn't look
like you. That person's getting ahead, that person's taking something
from you, and those people are for that person, and
(35:48):
I'm for you. And in a way that we've never seen,
at least in my lifetime, people who would expouse those beliefs,
whether they are white supremacists, have been invited to the
party because they are a critical piece of a voting
block right now, and that's something that needs to be extinguished.
(36:09):
And so we can't leave just the oververt racism of
what's happening in this country out of our discussion.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
We have one more clip that gets to something that
is really fascinating in this film.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Really the crux of the film. There is a tool
the president.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Has fully legal, also comes with a lot of consequences.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
It's called the insurrection Act.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
It was passed in seventeen ninety two, and it gives
the President of the United States the power to use
the military against civilians on US soil in certain circumstances.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Listen to this. This is going to be a defining
moment of your presidency.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
So the media sports, we have to understand why they
will want to give command and control we the president.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
The Insurrection Act is a trap.
Speaker 16 (36:58):
We need to have a further discertion, the find a
moment in their governorship.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Then we have what President, Your audience is the American public,
and they want to know that Congress is coming back
to certify. So we do have to.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Come into agreement here. Because time is moving on.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
You have to decide which way you're going to want
to move, mister President, ten minutes remaining.
Speaker 8 (37:23):
The President is sweaty.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
He's going to have to make a decision.
Speaker 10 (37:28):
Mister President, Are you invoking the Insurrection Act or federalizing
National Guard?
Speaker 2 (37:31):
What neither has happened yet. Statement, I'm not asking you,
I'm asking the president. Are you doing either?
Speaker 18 (37:47):
Mister President?
Speaker 1 (37:48):
President, President, President Governor Bullock, Mister President, easy day, wasn't it?
Did it make you wonder whether you really wanted to
run for president back in the day. What was going
through your mind as you were considering whether to invoke
the Insurrection Act.
Speaker 11 (38:06):
Well, first, a lot of voices, as you could say,
I mean Jack had said at some point the fog
of war, and you didn't have all of the information
along the way. As a governor, you're the commander in
chief of your National Guard, had got to work with
folks like General Saine on a regular basis, But trying
(38:26):
to get a hold and control of the situation while
recognizing that like, look, that's the nuclear option when you're
sending in US military against your own citizens when half
of the country didn't even think you were properly elected. Like,
(38:48):
once you go there, you can't put that back in
the bottle. So it was both thinking about how do
you control the situation and then what do we do
the next day to start hopefully he lean this country.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Heidi Hidekamp, you were a senior advisor to the president.
What were you weighing as you thought about how to
advise him on whether to use the Insurrection Act?
Speaker 5 (39:10):
I think when you are trying to defend democracy and
you take the most extreme power that government has, which
would have been the Insurrection Act basically declaring military law.
Then you need to think about whether you're actually defending
democracy or whether you're just taking an easy way out.
And the other thing is, and you will see it
(39:32):
when you see the movie. We had incomplete information on
what whether the governors were actually deploying the resources that
they already had at their ready.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
And which is realistic probably what would actually happen.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
Absolutely, and we kept saying, get the governor on the phone.
You know, we're trying to trying to parse through that
whole system. And the interesting thing about this exercise is
Steve and I both come from state government. We were
both attorneys general. That's really where my heart is. Even
though I served in the Senate, I see myself more
(40:08):
as a state official. And I think we looked at
this through a lens of state government and state responsibility
in each one of these locations and the value of
the federalist system, federalism system that we have where states
have that autonomy, and so to take that away from
states was another huge factor that led to recommendations Governor.
Speaker 11 (40:32):
Block, I guess and without sort of saying how it
all lends. One of the things that I was heartened
with through the exercise too, was like you had incredible military,
former four star generals involved, and you know, and part
of you might think, okay that a four star general
(40:55):
would say everything looks like a nail and we're the hammer.
How thoughtful they were in providing counsel to us as well.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
General thing.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Yeah, if you were in that situation at that moment
and the President said we're invoking the Insurrection Act, as
a person.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
In the military, what do you do? You just have
to do what he says.
Speaker 13 (41:20):
Well, so that is where I have to really stand
on principle, which I think I did in the exercise, right.
I really wanted to make sure that we understood what
that meant. And I think for you know, when you
get a chance to see wargame, I want you to
understand what that really means to you as a citizen.
That means that you're taking someone like us and you're
(41:42):
asking us to go and fight against our families, our friends,
our aunts, our uncles, our neighbors. That happens abroad, it
doesn't happen here in the US, not anymore. And so
that is an nuclear option that you've got to be
prepared for the consequences. When someone pulls that card, it
(42:08):
has long standing, far more consequences than you can imagine.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Alex Vinmin.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
It has already been reported that if President Trump were
to win again that he is advisors have said that
he is considering using the Insurrection Act on the first
day if there are mass protests.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Do you think that he would do that?
Speaker 14 (42:31):
I think he'd want to set the conditions for being
able to justify the Insurrection Act, I think, frankly, in
this scenario, I think the Red Cell was doing everything
they could to force the hand of the President and
have him invoke the Insurrection Act and use that as
justification for widespread violence. I think Donald Trump would be
(42:51):
very eager to launch this kind of situation for two
different reasons. One because he gives him a chance toek
retribution against his enemies, and two is that it gives
him some justification for holding on to power, doing the
thing that he's already declared that he wants to do,
which is to become a dictator for a single.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Day, but as only our day one.
Speaker 14 (43:13):
Yeah, as we understand, if it's if you're a dictator
on day one, then you're a dictator forever until you're removed.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Jesse Moss.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
One of the interesting things that we haven't talked about
is that this was filmed just blocks away from the Capitol.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
What a year after January? Two years after January sixth?
What was that like?
Speaker 9 (43:34):
I think we have these ghosts that we live with.
They're everywhere. They're in our hearts, our psychees. And the
very hotel where we filmed was a hotel that insurrectionists
stayed in on January sixth. It's the hotel we reclaimed
for democracy. That's how I like to think about it.
I think the exercise exhuoms ghosts and allows us to
look at them and confront our fears, but in what
(43:56):
I think is not an inflammatory and frightening way, A
little bit frightening. I think in a constructive way, because
it's all of these people who I think want to
protect and defend democracy, and so I think we do
confront those ghosts, but in a very cathartic way. We
need to do that.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Tony Gribber, what do you want an ordinary person who
sees this film to take away from?
Speaker 2 (44:19):
What are they supposed to do with this information?
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Obviously, if you were to play this in a room
in Washington with policymakers or people in the military, better.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Think about this, better be careful of that. But what
about just a regular person.
Speaker 10 (44:31):
Well, you know, the challenge for us was to take
this all in and make a film. So the film
has to provide an emotional journey for its audience, right,
That was important. And it has to deploy empathy because
if an audience doesn't feel anything, they're never moved to action.
Speaker 14 (44:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
So they had to care about all these people.
Speaker 10 (44:50):
They had to feel what it would be like to
be sitting at that table, to be in President Hotham's shoes,
weighing the consequences of making these decisions.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
So it's my hope that.
Speaker 10 (45:01):
We have a beautiful broad theatrical release followed by a
really healthy life on the streaming platform, and that people
can see this movie with community, right, they can sit
in a movie theater next to other people and feel
the community, right, And that the film sparks conversation. And
(45:21):
it's not a monolith, right, it's not suppression of different
points of view, it's a launching point.
Speaker 9 (45:28):
I think there's probably a lot of disagreement on this
stage about particular political issues, and you know, we come
from all different perspectives on the spectrum, but I think
we do have common concerns and values, and I think
that's what I saw in what Chanessa organized and the
different backgrounds of the people involved in this that I
wanted to be a part of, to witness, to try
to capture, because I think that's a powerful lesson for
(45:50):
all of us.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Alex Finman, Yeah, so.
Speaker 14 (45:52):
I think this is going to actually tap into a
zeitgeist of the moment. Unfortunately, we're now in the world
where American public, large swaths of the American public have
woken up to the dangers, have shaken off complacency about
the security of our democracy. I think that played out
in the way elections unfolded in twenty twenty twenty twenty two,
(46:12):
this off cycle election in twenty twenty three, people are
voting on the basis of preserving democracy, and I think
this film is going to strike at a moment where
one six is still fresh in people's minds. We're coming
up on a presidential election and people can reflect on
the fact that we're still in harm's way, We're still
in danger, and we need to take charge of our democracy.
Vote accordingly to preserve our form of government.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Elizabeth Newman.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Do you think that the lessons have been learned in
Washington to be prepared for what's what could happen.
Speaker 18 (46:43):
Washington is having a hard time getting anything done right now,
so I had hope that we might see some laws
passed to address everything from the vulnerabilities demonstrated on January
sixth to our domestic terrorism architecture, which a whole other conversation,
(47:03):
but is woefully equipped when you compare how we're able
to go after international terrorism. So there's vulnerabilities in our
structure that have not been fixed. I do think that
the Executive Branch is much more attuned to domestic terrorism.
(47:24):
They've done a lot of work to better understand it,
to better use the tools that we do have to
go after domestic terrorists. But it is really fraught for
the federal government to try to address this mass political
violence problem we have. That it goes to what the
governor mentioned. When the federal government does something, it is
(47:48):
perceived as the Democrats are doing something to the Republicans.
It is blue state against red state. Even if the
civil servance in the Executive Branch many of them are
Republican and conservative, but we see demonization of our law
(48:09):
enforcement agencies. We see accusations that the Department of Justice
has been politicized to go after political enemies. So that's
the operating space that the executive branch is in right now.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. And so
they're doing the best they can, but they recognize that
(48:30):
if they overstep, it actually makes the problem worse.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
That was former Trump Administration Homeland Security official Elizabeth Newman,
one of the participants in the new documentary film Wargame,
which premiered at the Sundance.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
Film Festival in Utah.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
We'll link you to more about the film at Listen
Toothmiddle dot com, where you can share your thoughts as well.
Are you worried about another January sixth or a split
in military allegiances?
Speaker 2 (48:54):
As always, you can leave us a.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
Message at eight four four four Middle that is eight
four four four six four three three five three, or
you can write to us at listen to Theemiddle dot com.
So next week we're back with another live show as
South Carolina gets ready to hold its Republican presidential primary.
Only a handful of states have voted so far, but
many on the right would have you believe former President
(49:16):
Trump is already the party's nominee, so we want to
know is it time to change the way we nominate
our presidential candidates.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
That's our topic next week.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
You can call in at eight four four four Middle
anytime and leave a message or call in live next week.
The Middle is brought to you by Longknok Media, distributed
by Illinois Public Media in Urbana, Illinois, and produced by
Joeann Jennings, Harrison Patino, John Barth, and Danny Alexander. Our
technical director is Jason Croft. Our theme music was composed
(49:46):
by Andrew Haig. Thanks to Nashville Public Radio, iHeartMedia, and
the more than four hundred public radio stations that are
making it possible for people across the country to listen
to The Middle, I'm Jeremy Hobson.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
Talk to you next week. Between the
Speaker 10 (50:29):
Scop
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