December 9, 2024 • 30 mins
Richie McGinniss, independent journalist and author of Riot Diet: One Man's Radical Ride Through America in Chaos, joins to share his firsthand experiences covering the chaos of 2020. From the explosive nights in Kenosha and the Kyle Rittenhouse trial to Portland’s surreal “battle of the leaf blowers” and Seattle’s CHAZ zone, Richie dives into the heart of the riots, the players involved, and the untold stories.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to the Fuck Sexton Show podcast. Make sure
you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts. BLM two point zero The
Summer of riots in twenty twenty Kenosha and Kyle Rittenhouse
defending himself with lethal force against a mob of maniacs
January sixth, and all of the mayhem and the police,
(00:35):
pepper spray and people getting attacked at all kinds of stuff.
It's not every day you talk to somebody who has
been at all of these things, and yet here we
are with our friend Richie McGuinness to talk about that.
His new book is here is Riot Diet. One Man's
radical ride through America and Chaos Richie McGuinness. And Richie's
(00:59):
an independent journalist. He's known by a lot of people
on the right for his fearlessness. I mean, let's just start.
Let's start with this question, shall we. What was in
your mind? It's just the most surreal, crazy thing in
the summer of twenty twenty when those BLM riots were
just roiling the country. Well, I was Kenosha the craziest
(01:19):
night of that whole thing. For you, what was the
craziest single night when the country seemed to have been
gripped by this madness.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I'd say Kenosha was definitely the craziest as far as
the level of destruction, just to you know, the amount
of buildings that were burning, the amount of personal property that.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Was getting lit on fire.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Probably the most surreal, though, was Portland, and that was
like one hundred consecutive nights of rioting, and that was
basically the same story of all these other protest zones.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
You had to take take me into this, like what
what when did the rioting start? What were they complaining about?
I mean, one thing yourself was fascinating. If I remember
during the BLM riots in Portland, you have all these
like anti fault white guys freaking out about George Floyd. Right,
I mean, what, well, yes, take us take us back
into this.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yeah, so I go through that in the book as well.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
It's you know, like three percent percent black city that
was historically racist. They had laws all the way through
the seventies that banned black people from living within the
city limits. And after George Floyd was killed, there were
protests that every single night followed the same formula. They'd
be a protest around sundown and there'd be speakers, there'd
(02:30):
be five thousand people out there, overwhelming majority of those
people out there with good intentions, and then a smaller
group that's stuck around. And by midnight you have five
hundred people, eight hundred people who were just smashing into
the fence with the express intention of instigating the police
and bringing them out from inside the courthouse. You know,
they'd be lighting garbage fires in the plaza, they'd be
(02:51):
doing whatever they could, firing fireworks into the plaza to
bring the police out, and you know, they were geared
up with gas masks.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
And that chapter is called the Battle of.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
The leaf Blowers because they use leaf blowers to blow
the tear gas away from the protests. Professors, rioters get
safe to call them, right, these ones rioters. The DHS
actually got their own leaf flowers because it was so effective.
So there were federal agents who were using leaf flowers
to blow the smoke towards the protest, and then the
(03:20):
protesters were using their own leaf flowers to blow it back.
So that was the most surreal moment of just seeing like,
are you know, basically law enforcement officers using leaf flowers.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I mean, you know, there's photos. I have some of
your footage and we want to share it with the audience.
I mean, stuff like this guy at some of these events,
some of these protests, who's dressed up in like an
armor suit, like what you would expect from medieval you know,
medieval nights and jousts and stuff, literally full full.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Nights, get up like authentic you'd see at medieval times.
And that really gets into the aspect of you know,
how much of this is genuine protest and how much
of it is like costplaying knowing that the cameras are
rolling and actually performing for the cameras that are rolling.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Let me ask you this because there's so much here
and I want to get into it. And also we
haven't even mentioned or had gotten to you yet on
the chazz issue. Right at the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,
which was Seattle, right, which how where the city of
Seattle people that think just want to forget they want
to forget this now because it's so insane. They decided
that a whole section of the city is just like
under an independent government of lunatics or something. It was nuts.
(04:29):
So I want you to tell us about that in
a moment. But first up. I mean, as I look
at all of this, you know, there are all these
people right now who are in custody still as you
and I talk for January sixth related defenses. And the
one thing that the people who are still clinging to this, oh,
it's rule of law, they'll say, well, what about the
assaults on police officers? Did you see assaults on police
officers in Portland? I mean, did you ever see anybody
(04:52):
shove or throw something at a cop? And did they
get sent to years in federal prison and have their
lives destroyed? I'm guessing not.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
No, they did not, And oftentimes you'd see those same
people come out literally the next night. And there's certainly
the same level of violence against police that I saw
in places like Portland and even in DC around when
they tried to take down the Jackson statue in late June,
there was major clashes with police as they broke that up.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Were you in Portland when they had the federal officers
who were there who were a problem that came up?
I remember reading about this, so I'm wondering if you
were like when they were trying to blind them with
the lasers. This became a new thing. They were shooting
lasers in the eyes of people, hoping to burn their
retinas so they can't doing this to law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah, they had lasers.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
And I was there right when the first Molotov cocktails
were used as well, and they were not only shooting
fireworks but also using Molotov cocktails. I was filming from
Afar and saw this fire bomb explode and later on
the night one exploded in a massive fireball right in
front of the courthouse.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
And to my.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Knowledge, there were Molotov cocktails that were arrests that were
recovered inside the park, but as far as arrests that
were made for the people who threw those Molotov cocktails
on that night, there was nothing.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So and so just to be clear, there were you saw,
you witnessed times where a Molotov cocktail, which anybody who
knows the history of it used in the in the
counter assault against the Russian invasion of Finland, and they
called it a Molotov cocktail because of the Foreign Minister
Molotov of Russia at the time. And they threw them
(06:32):
at the cops though, or they just threw them in
like the street, you know, did they ever actually deploy
them at officers.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
They did.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
They did, and the one, the first one that I captured,
blew up like right next to some cops. It was
a smaller fireball than they put it out. And what
they would do is bunch up inside of the plaza
behind their shields, so that allowed made them kind of
an easy target. So that one blew up right next
to them, and then another one later on in the
night blew up right in front of the doors right
(06:58):
before they exited. So and then there was a viral
clip like a couple weeks later where actually one of
the rioters threw a molotov cocktail and lit one of
the other rioters hants on fire. So as far as
like actual injuries to officers, I don't you know. They
were wearing protective gear, they had gas masks and all
that I'm not aware of like serious injuries that took place.
(07:19):
But they were certainly trying, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And who are these people who are doing this stuff
to the degree that you can like, well, people that
are dressing up and you know, they got their gas
mask and their shield and they I guess they live
in the Portland area or maybe they're somewhere else in
the Pacific. Why is also the Pacific Northwest like the
homeland of these lunatic anarchists or whatever and black Block
and all this, like take me through some of that.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Well, the people who were out there, I think generally
obviously were disaffected, mostly younger people, especially when you compare
it with the MAGA crowd, which is a much older
demographic overall. But you know, a lot of these people
actually didn't live in Portland, same with Kenosha. They came
from surrounding metropolitan areas and they came there because they
(08:06):
knew that was the hot spot where it was going down.
And Portland and Seattle are traditionally kind of these hot
spots where not only left wing agitators but also the
Proud Boys. That's really where they not Gavin McInnis is
based in New York. He started the Proud Boys, but
their primary location of instigation you call it, was Portland.
(08:29):
So it was not only like you had these extreme
demonstrators rioting for dozens of night nights on end. We're
mostly like your typical I think, kids without you know, opportunities,
who live in their parents' basements. But then you also
had the proud Boys coming out to counter protest, and
that's a different situation entirely because.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
They're they're proud, so you know who a proud boy is.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
But if you ask somebody if they're Antifa in the book,
I call them the Umbrella Gang, because nobody's going to
tell you, oh yeah, I'm Antifa. You know, they wear
all black, they're specifically not designated as Antifa, whereas the
Proud Boys wear the black and gold shirts and you
can you know, says proud boys on there. So umbrella
gang the term that I used to describe them, but
generally just younger kids who feel like they don't have
(09:14):
opportunity and that's their cause.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
You were at Kenosha, which turned really into for most
people's minds, the word the Writtenhouse incident where Kyle Rittenhouse
defended himself using lethal force against a couple of assailants
and they tried to lock Kyle up for this, and
he was found not guilty, I think in part because
of a large part because of some of the footage
that existed showing what happened and showing the exchange. I
(09:40):
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slash buck. All right, take us in. We're speaking to
Richie McGinnis, Riot Died is his book for anybody who
is joining us kind of in progress here, Riot Died
(10:44):
is the book. Tell us this What was it like
that night leading up to the lethal force self defense
of Kyle rittenhouse? What was going on in Kenosha.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Well, we arrived on the second head of rioting, so
Jacob Blake, who started to kick the whole thing off.
He was trying to enter a vehicle which had his
kids in it. There was a worn out for his
arrest for sexual assault of baby Mama. She called the
police when he arrived at the house and told them
that they had to get down there, that she was
(11:18):
afraid for her safety and her kids safety. And he
was entering a vehicle and just like everything else during
that summer, you know, you had a video that was
taken out of context where he can be seen wrestling
with police trying to enter the vehicle and he's shot.
And the narrative that came out was that he was
shot seven times in the back. It was four times
in the side and three times in the back, or
three times in the side and four times in the back,
(11:38):
and he actually was armed with a knife according to police,
and also was trying to enter into a vehicle which
had kids inside of it, and so the narrative was
that he was shot in front of his kids. What
wasn't said was that he was armed with a knife.
He had a worn out for his arrest. He was
tased twice before that video started, and then he was
(11:59):
shot after that. So that kicked off the whole thing
on Sunday. We arrived on Monday, and actually the reason
why I ended up interviewing Kyle Rittenhouse thirteen minutes before
the shooting was because was the car source business that
he was defending. The night before that, Shelby Talcott and I,
who was my coworker, we were out there traveling to
all these riots and stuff. We interviewed some individuals were
(12:22):
using power washers to put out the fire, the vehicle
fires that were in front of this car source business.
And so the next night I saw on Twitter I
went inside to publish my footage of everybody getting pushed
out from in front of the courthouse where they were protesting,
and as they started to light things on fire in
the surrounding business areas, I saw that there were armed
individuals in front of that same business. So I was like,
(12:43):
this is an extension of the story that we saw
last night. We had the volunteer fire brigade, and now
we have the volunteer cops out here. And so I
immediately dropped what I was doing and I went out there,
and the first person who was standing right in front
of that business was Kyle Rittenhouse, and I just said,
does anyone want to do an interview about why you
guys are here? That was kind of our job is
just ask people, you know, why are you out here?
Speaker 3 (13:03):
What do you think you're doing?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
And he told me, you know, he had his MT
PAC said he was a trained which turned out to
not be true, but he also had his rifle, and
so he said that he was providing medical attention to
protesters who had been injured by riot munitions, but also
defending the business with the rifle. So I actually followed
Kyle through the I guess, you know, it was like
(13:28):
basically a dispersed riot at this point, where there were
a couple hundred protesters who had been pushed away from
the courthouse. And I noticed immediately he was you know,
shouting medical, does anyone need medical attention?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Obviously he had the intention.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Of helping these people, but they didn't view it that
way because they saw his rifle. And if it hadn't
been my younger brother, I would have dragged him out
of there at that moment. But my job was to
be a fly on the wall, and so, you know,
I noticed that people were perceiving him negatively, and actually
I went to interview a couple of people. There were
four guys who were standing there yelling at him, yelling
(14:03):
at Kyle, you think you're in a movie, man, you
think you're cool. So I went to interview them, ask
him why they, you know, didn't view Kyle's role in
that situation as positively as Kyle viewed himself, and I
aimed the camera at them. One of the guys had
a handgun and his waistband. He stood up. Another guy
had some bricks in his hand. He looked like he
wanted to smash my head, and I used my go
to move to diffuse the situation. I put my phone away.
(14:25):
I was like, I just want to hear from you guys.
Does anyone want a white claw? So I actually, like,
this is now four minutes before the shooting. I offered
a white claw to the guy with the handgun, and
then he actually laughed. It broke the ice. We started
to talk as I cracked it, and then I saw
Kyle running down the street with his ar in one
hand and a small fire extinguisher in the other, like
literally running. So I just dropped what I was doing.
(14:48):
I was like, sorry, guys, I gotta go, and I
followed Kyle down the street and called my coworker Shelby.
I said, something's about to go down. I don't know
what's going on. That was literally the moment that Rosenbaum
emerged from the side of the street screamed at Kyle.
Kyle started to run. I thought I took a video.
I took a photo of the ground. It turns out,
(15:09):
and I was running by behind Rosenbaum, who was chasing rittenhouse.
A pop went off that I didn't know at the time,
but it was a gunshot, and Kyle's turned around. He
had his gun aim for forty five degrees at the
fords the ground, and Rosenbaum screamed FU and dove for
the weapon. Kyle dodged and shot four shots in zero
point seven seconds. And the last thing that was, you know,
(15:33):
interesting about my role in the whole thing was that
I told the police that I looked down at the
moment of the shooting and didn't see him collapse rosenbaumb
collapse because I felt something go past my legs, and
so they took what I said looking down feeling something
go past my legs and made me a victim in
the case as well.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
And I didn't ask to be named a victim.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
But there was a weird juggling act where I had
my best friend's dad who's a criminal lawyer. He was like,
you can have them pull back the charges and not
be a victim anymore. You can ask for that, but
then you'll be deemed as a biased witness. He was
trying to help Kyle, and that'll actually make your testimony
less credible. So you actually just the best thing to
(16:18):
do is just ride it out. And so I had
to go through the process of being both a key
witness and a named victim. And it's possible in Wisconsin
you're acquitted of self defense but charged with reckless endangerment
of another individual. So I was terrified personally that, you know,
he would be acquitted on all charges except for the
twelve years that the maximum that sentence that was associated
(16:40):
with my victimhood.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I guess, wait, so around so one of the discharge
rounds when he was defending himself went past your legs.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, and actually the FBI released surveillance footage from Assessana
that they were flying overhead, not until a year. You know,
people were saying he's lying, that didn't happen, But they
had an infrared camera up above the protest and you
can see the heat signature of the bullet right in
front of me in that footage. So, I mean, I
(17:10):
knew that I felt something. That's why I looked down
and I stamped my legs to make sure I was okay.
So I think maybe it was like a piece of
concrete or something that skimmed past my nylon pants. But uh,
I guess that raises another question of if if the
FBI had Assessmo overhead, you know, why was the city
allowed to burn and be destroyed in the way.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah, where were the police during all of this?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Well, they were guarding the courthouse, and the National Guard
was present as well, and they were guarding the courthouse.
But they, you know, the police in Kenosha, like in
d C. This never would have happened because DC cops,
you know, they know what they're doing. Obviously, January sixth
is another story which we can get into.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
We're we're going to get into that in a minute.
Yeah yeah, but uh yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
They so they weren't prepared for it, They didn't know
how to do riot control, and once they were, you know,
they're defending the courthouse, but they weren't defending the small
businesses that were surrounding the area. So this, you know,
those three nights in a row of just wide scale
arson throughout the city.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Well let's go to j six here coming up in
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eight eight IFCJ. All right, Richie, now take us to
January sixth. What'd you see? What happened? What do we
need to know?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Okay, well, I guess the story of January sixth obviously
starts with the election. I was on the ground in
DC for the election night. Obviously, things weren't resolved on
that night, and I was there for Stop to Steal one,
which you saw thousands of Trump supporters come to DC
and they were wearing their red hats, and as they
left the Ellipse area on that first Stopped the Steal,
(19:36):
they went kind of helplessly through BLM Plaza, which is
kind of like walking through BLM Plaza with a Maga
hat is like walking into a hornet's nest. But most
of these people were from, you know, around the country.
They didn't know what they were walking into. So we
filmed a variety of assaults on people who had Maga hats,
and the second stop the Steal in December, the Proud
(19:57):
Boys came in force because after all that footage of
Maga people getting beat up and assaulted, they basically came
to you know, I guess give it back to them.
And so we saw like widespread, like medieval style street
battles in downtown d C at Stop the Steel too
in December, and so by January sixth, like I had
(20:20):
this is after Kenosha too, So I had my bulletproof vest,
my bulletproof backpack, my bulletproof helmet, and my gas mask.
I thought all everything was going to pop off around dark,
as it had with the previous two. So I was
at home where I had internet. I was streaming the
Trump rally. I had five people on the ground where
such a big crowd and maybe they were using jammers too,
who knows, but nobody had cell service down there. So
I was waiting until later to go down and my
(20:43):
now wife then girlfriend was on the top of Rayburn,
which is a house office building, and she was like,
I see cops running in opposite directions. This is at
like one pm. And I was like, okay, that's it.
Then I guess the poop has hit the fan quicker
than I thought, so I geared up.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
I was in the uber with my.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Putting my literally putting my bulletproof vest on, putting my
gas mask, adjusting it so it fit with my ballistic helmet,
and I hit traffic, and I brought my skateboard, knowing
I was going to hit traffic, and I skate boarded
down to the western front where the inauguration tower and
all that was. And this is about now, just after
two pm. And my first thought when I got down
there was why is it that I'm better prepared than
(21:22):
almost all of these cops. So I had my gas mask,
and I'm walking in between the two sides clashing a
lot of the On the Maga side they had pepper spray.
The cops had pepper spray, and so as each side
got pepper spray, they'd be running away, and I was
just standing in between. You know, my hands were burning
a little bit, but I was able to see and
able to function because I was prepared. And I climbed
(21:44):
up into the inauguration tower and filmed the breaking of
the police lines. And then once I saw them streaming in,
I was like, same as the BLM stuff. I'm not
going to trust the FEDS or the cops to tell
us what happened. I'm not going to trust the protesters
to tell us what happened. My job is to go
in there and get in the middle of it. And
I ended up on the other side of the house
doors where the sergeant at arms had their gunstrawn, and
(22:05):
that famous photo of the guy sticking his face through
the glass. He I was right behind that guy, so
I thought maybe I was going to get caught in
the crossfire yet again. After knocha, literally eight minutes later,
the cops finally peeled everybody off those doors. They got reinforcements.
I went into the rotunda and there was a guy
who had rolled a joint and was smoking a joint.
(22:27):
So that just shows like the scope of you know,
one side said it was totally peaceful. The other side
said they're all insurrectionists. It's the same as the BLM stuff.
The overwhelming majority were peaceful, but there's a small group
of people who were trying to break into those doors
and get into where the votes were being counted. So
both things can be true at the same time.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Did the FBI ever come knocking on your door and
try to ask you a lot of questions about this.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Well, it's interesting. I have had at the time congressional
press credentials, so I was allowed to be in there
regardless of whether or not there was a riot taking place.
Interest they did not, and I thought that they would,
because you know, I published my footage. But you know,
you have to think that they're going to ask me,
do you have anything else? You know, do you have
(23:13):
anything else on your phone or do you have any
like we were in a bunch of different group chats
with like Proud Boys telegram chats, you know, So like,
how was it that through you know, my own intelligence gathering,
I was better prepared than the police were on that
day and knew that the o they were going to
be there was going to be violence. That's a question
(23:34):
that I still don't have the answer to.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Did you have any Did you have any sense from
the people who were there that they were concerned that
some of the people who were either in the run
up to this or during it, getting the crowd hyped up,
might have been plants? Is that something that ever came
up among the discussions with you know, these people these
telegram chats et cetera.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Definitely in reeps.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Was there the night before, and that video actually came
up in one of the chats. I remember he was saying,
we need to go into the capitol. That was on
January fifth, And actually I didn't realize until after the fact,
but as I was walking down the line, Ray Epps
is in my footage. He was right at the base
of the inauguration tower and he actually left right as
everybody was breaking the line. So he walked away right
(24:19):
as I got to the bottom of that tower and
climbed up. But there were, I mean dozens of different
interactions where people were screaming stop, stop, you know. So
some people were smashing into police shields and fighting with
the cops and pepper spray and them and a lot
of others were saying, guys, we have to stop this.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
What are you guys doing?
Speaker 2 (24:39):
So there is this like Lord of the Flies effect
that I call it, where you know, it only takes
one or two or three or four in a huge
group of people to start banging into police and once
the pepper spray comes out, once the tier guys comes out,
a different part of your brain turns on you see
a guy with a maga hat, get billy clubb down
to the ground, and you turn into a primal person.
(25:01):
You know, and I think, especially like in the modern day,
we don't really we're not in touch with that side
of the human psyche. But when that kind of happens,
you you know, you're not thinking anymore so much as
just running on primal circuitry.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
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this number eight four four A two four safe. That's
eight four four eight two four safe. Rich This has
been fascinating. I really, I'm I already have my copy
obviously here Riot Diet. I would tell everyone listening and
everyone watching please go get.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Their copy as well.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
These stories. You know.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
I did a little side note here when I first
so I came out of the CIA and I wasn't
looking to do media, and I got hired by Glenn
Back to do national security analysis for the Blaze. And
the first thing though, where I got to kind of
do reporting or you know, going out was Occupy Wall
Street and people think of Occupy Wall Street as just
(27:07):
this kind of weird like hippie fest down in Zuccati Park,
and there certainly was that, and you know it was,
but I was also there when they cleaned that thing
out and the cops were like throwing people around and
pepper spraying everybody and kettling everybody. I was there for
some of the antifa anti cop things that kind of
broke off of Occupy Wall Street during that people forget
(27:29):
Occupy Wall Streets. Zuccati Park was like the hub, but
there were other events. You know, they would meet up
in other places in the city and do this madness
and black block guys I remember, you know, NYPD guys
throwing them on the ground and pepper spraying people and stuff.
Was there was some mayhem going on with that, So
that was I don't know, it was interesting stuff to
see at the time, and obviously it grew and grew
(27:51):
to the point where where you were looking at this
stuff it got to you know, some some of the
biggest events in our recent sort of political and domestic
history involved some of this stuff. So really interesting to
hear you.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
And that's why that's why they they came out and
supported BLM, all the big corporations, because after Occupy they said, well,
if we don't want to, if we can't beat them
and join them, right.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Interesting, I hadn't really even thought about that, yeah, because
I mean, originally it was all about it wasn't really
about Wall Street. It was more about sort of corporate
and bank bailouts, right. I mean it's funny because as
you know, Wall Street, they're in Zukati Park, Like Wall
Street now is basically a tourist attraction. You know, there's
some stuff down there, but actual banking is really in
Midtown Manhattan. That's where all the big bank's headquarters are now.
(28:33):
Except for a couple there's like Goldman down downtown, a
few others. But yeah, I'm just wondering this. It feels
like a lull right now. I want to close with this.
Feels like a lull in the left wing. You know,
Street soldier shock brigades. Right, haven't seen a lot of Antifa.
Havn't we got a Trump inauguration coming up? What are
you hearing?
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Like?
Speaker 1 (28:53):
We didn't see the riots after the Trump win yet
but are we gonna see riots? Are they waiting for
the deportation stuff to begin and they're gonna start getting
all anarchists radical over that? Like what do you see
or have they just are they taking a breather here?
I mean, they don't have day jobs, so what are
they doing?
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Richie?
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Well, it definitely doesn't benefit if the incumbent party has
chaos under their watch. So I think the inauguration is
when that stuff's going to kick back off because Trump's
back in power, and if you have chaos under Trump,
then Trump looks bad, you know, then he brings in
his his National Guard or DHS troops and then he's
(29:32):
the fascist that they all want him to be. So
I think definitely we'll see protests, inauguration clashes with counter
protesters and protesters and inauguration goers, and then I agree,
I think with all of the immigration stuff, I mean,
there's going to be a whole powder keg of different
issues that people are going to be going nuts to.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
These lunatics that you've been covering for years now, and
you've been They're not done, is what you're that? They're
not done.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
I don't think they're No, I don't think I don't
think it's done. Unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Are you going to be at the inauguration?
Speaker 3 (30:03):
I will be.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
You know, I'm trying to retire from this whole riot
beat because you know, I'm trying to you know, I'm
getting a little old. Plus you know, if people recognize you,
that's that's a big issue too. But I will definitely
be at inauguration and you know, we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Save a gas mask for me, buddy, because I'll be
there and uh and riot diet.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Here you go.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
The book. Thank you. It needs to be extra large.
I got a big head and a lot of hair,
so yeah, absolutely, Richie, great work man. Congrats on the book,
and thank you for joining us here on a Buck Breef.
Appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Thanks for having me Buck
You're listening to the Fuck Sexton Show podcast. Make sure
you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts. BLM two point zero The
Summer of riots in twenty twenty Kenosha and Kyle Rittenhouse
defending himself with lethal force against a mob of maniacs
January sixth, and all of the mayhem and the police,
(00:35):
pepper spray and people getting attacked at all kinds of stuff.
It's not every day you talk to somebody who has
been at all of these things, and yet here we
are with our friend Richie McGuinness to talk about that.
His new book is here is Riot Diet. One Man's
radical ride through America and Chaos Richie McGuinness. And Richie's
(00:59):
an independent journalist. He's known by a lot of people
on the right for his fearlessness. I mean, let's just start.
Let's start with this question, shall we. What was in
your mind? It's just the most surreal, crazy thing in
the summer of twenty twenty when those BLM riots were
just roiling the country. Well, I was Kenosha the craziest
(01:19):
night of that whole thing. For you, what was the
craziest single night when the country seemed to have been
gripped by this madness.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I'd say Kenosha was definitely the craziest as far as
the level of destruction, just to you know, the amount
of buildings that were burning, the amount of personal property that.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Was getting lit on fire.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Probably the most surreal, though, was Portland, and that was
like one hundred consecutive nights of rioting, and that was
basically the same story of all these other protest zones.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
You had to take take me into this, like what
what when did the rioting start? What were they complaining about?
I mean, one thing yourself was fascinating. If I remember
during the BLM riots in Portland, you have all these
like anti fault white guys freaking out about George Floyd. Right,
I mean, what, well, yes, take us take us back
into this.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yeah, so I go through that in the book as well.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
It's you know, like three percent percent black city that
was historically racist. They had laws all the way through
the seventies that banned black people from living within the
city limits. And after George Floyd was killed, there were
protests that every single night followed the same formula. They'd
be a protest around sundown and there'd be speakers, there'd
(02:30):
be five thousand people out there, overwhelming majority of those
people out there with good intentions, and then a smaller
group that's stuck around. And by midnight you have five
hundred people, eight hundred people who were just smashing into
the fence with the express intention of instigating the police
and bringing them out from inside the courthouse. You know,
they'd be lighting garbage fires in the plaza, they'd be
(02:51):
doing whatever they could, firing fireworks into the plaza to
bring the police out, and you know, they were geared
up with gas masks.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
And that chapter is called the Battle of.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
The leaf Blowers because they use leaf blowers to blow
the tear gas away from the protests. Professors, rioters get
safe to call them, right, these ones rioters. The DHS
actually got their own leaf flowers because it was so effective.
So there were federal agents who were using leaf flowers
to blow the smoke towards the protest, and then the
(03:20):
protesters were using their own leaf flowers to blow it back.
So that was the most surreal moment of just seeing like,
are you know, basically law enforcement officers using leaf flowers.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I mean, you know, there's photos. I have some of
your footage and we want to share it with the audience.
I mean, stuff like this guy at some of these events,
some of these protests, who's dressed up in like an
armor suit, like what you would expect from medieval you know,
medieval nights and jousts and stuff, literally full full.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Nights, get up like authentic you'd see at medieval times.
And that really gets into the aspect of you know,
how much of this is genuine protest and how much
of it is like costplaying knowing that the cameras are
rolling and actually performing for the cameras that are rolling.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Let me ask you this because there's so much here
and I want to get into it. And also we
haven't even mentioned or had gotten to you yet on
the chazz issue. Right at the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,
which was Seattle, right, which how where the city of
Seattle people that think just want to forget they want
to forget this now because it's so insane. They decided
that a whole section of the city is just like
under an independent government of lunatics or something. It was nuts.
(04:29):
So I want you to tell us about that in
a moment. But first up. I mean, as I look
at all of this, you know, there are all these
people right now who are in custody still as you
and I talk for January sixth related defenses. And the
one thing that the people who are still clinging to this, oh,
it's rule of law, they'll say, well, what about the
assaults on police officers? Did you see assaults on police
officers in Portland? I mean, did you ever see anybody
(04:52):
shove or throw something at a cop? And did they
get sent to years in federal prison and have their
lives destroyed? I'm guessing not.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
No, they did not, And oftentimes you'd see those same
people come out literally the next night. And there's certainly
the same level of violence against police that I saw
in places like Portland and even in DC around when
they tried to take down the Jackson statue in late June,
there was major clashes with police as they broke that up.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Were you in Portland when they had the federal officers
who were there who were a problem that came up?
I remember reading about this, so I'm wondering if you
were like when they were trying to blind them with
the lasers. This became a new thing. They were shooting
lasers in the eyes of people, hoping to burn their
retinas so they can't doing this to law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah, they had lasers.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
And I was there right when the first Molotov cocktails
were used as well, and they were not only shooting
fireworks but also using Molotov cocktails. I was filming from
Afar and saw this fire bomb explode and later on
the night one exploded in a massive fireball right in
front of the courthouse.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
And to my.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Knowledge, there were Molotov cocktails that were arrests that were
recovered inside the park, but as far as arrests that
were made for the people who threw those Molotov cocktails
on that night, there was nothing.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So and so just to be clear, there were you saw,
you witnessed times where a Molotov cocktail, which anybody who
knows the history of it used in the in the
counter assault against the Russian invasion of Finland, and they
called it a Molotov cocktail because of the Foreign Minister
Molotov of Russia at the time. And they threw them
(06:32):
at the cops though, or they just threw them in
like the street, you know, did they ever actually deploy
them at officers.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
They did.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
They did, and the one, the first one that I captured,
blew up like right next to some cops. It was
a smaller fireball than they put it out. And what
they would do is bunch up inside of the plaza
behind their shields, so that allowed made them kind of
an easy target. So that one blew up right next
to them, and then another one later on in the
night blew up right in front of the doors right
(06:58):
before they exited. So and then there was a viral
clip like a couple weeks later where actually one of
the rioters threw a molotov cocktail and lit one of
the other rioters hants on fire. So as far as
like actual injuries to officers, I don't you know. They
were wearing protective gear, they had gas masks and all
that I'm not aware of like serious injuries that took place.
(07:19):
But they were certainly trying, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And who are these people who are doing this stuff
to the degree that you can like, well, people that
are dressing up and you know, they got their gas
mask and their shield and they I guess they live
in the Portland area or maybe they're somewhere else in
the Pacific. Why is also the Pacific Northwest like the
homeland of these lunatic anarchists or whatever and black Block
and all this, like take me through some of that.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Well, the people who were out there, I think generally
obviously were disaffected, mostly younger people, especially when you compare
it with the MAGA crowd, which is a much older
demographic overall. But you know, a lot of these people
actually didn't live in Portland, same with Kenosha. They came
from surrounding metropolitan areas and they came there because they
(08:06):
knew that was the hot spot where it was going down.
And Portland and Seattle are traditionally kind of these hot
spots where not only left wing agitators but also the
Proud Boys. That's really where they not Gavin McInnis is
based in New York. He started the Proud Boys, but
their primary location of instigation you call it, was Portland.
(08:29):
So it was not only like you had these extreme
demonstrators rioting for dozens of night nights on end. We're
mostly like your typical I think, kids without you know, opportunities,
who live in their parents' basements. But then you also
had the proud Boys coming out to counter protest, and
that's a different situation entirely because.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
They're they're proud, so you know who a proud boy is.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
But if you ask somebody if they're Antifa in the book,
I call them the Umbrella Gang, because nobody's going to
tell you, oh yeah, I'm Antifa. You know, they wear
all black, they're specifically not designated as Antifa, whereas the
Proud Boys wear the black and gold shirts and you
can you know, says proud boys on there. So umbrella
gang the term that I used to describe them, but
generally just younger kids who feel like they don't have
(09:14):
opportunity and that's their cause.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
You were at Kenosha, which turned really into for most
people's minds, the word the Writtenhouse incident where Kyle Rittenhouse
defended himself using lethal force against a couple of assailants
and they tried to lock Kyle up for this, and
he was found not guilty, I think in part because
of a large part because of some of the footage
that existed showing what happened and showing the exchange. I
(09:40):
want you to tell us about that in a second,
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slash buck. All right, take us in. We're speaking to
Richie McGinnis, Riot Died is his book for anybody who
is joining us kind of in progress here, Riot Died
(10:44):
is the book. Tell us this What was it like
that night leading up to the lethal force self defense
of Kyle rittenhouse? What was going on in Kenosha.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Well, we arrived on the second head of rioting, so
Jacob Blake, who started to kick the whole thing off.
He was trying to enter a vehicle which had his
kids in it. There was a worn out for his
arrest for sexual assault of baby Mama. She called the
police when he arrived at the house and told them
that they had to get down there, that she was
(11:18):
afraid for her safety and her kids safety. And he
was entering a vehicle and just like everything else during
that summer, you know, you had a video that was
taken out of context where he can be seen wrestling
with police trying to enter the vehicle and he's shot.
And the narrative that came out was that he was
shot seven times in the back. It was four times
in the side and three times in the back, or
three times in the side and four times in the back,
(11:38):
and he actually was armed with a knife according to police,
and also was trying to enter into a vehicle which
had kids inside of it, and so the narrative was
that he was shot in front of his kids. What
wasn't said was that he was armed with a knife.
He had a worn out for his arrest. He was
tased twice before that video started, and then he was
(11:59):
shot after that. So that kicked off the whole thing
on Sunday. We arrived on Monday, and actually the reason
why I ended up interviewing Kyle Rittenhouse thirteen minutes before
the shooting was because was the car source business that
he was defending. The night before that, Shelby Talcott and I,
who was my coworker, we were out there traveling to
all these riots and stuff. We interviewed some individuals were
(12:22):
using power washers to put out the fire, the vehicle
fires that were in front of this car source business.
And so the next night I saw on Twitter I
went inside to publish my footage of everybody getting pushed
out from in front of the courthouse where they were protesting,
and as they started to light things on fire in
the surrounding business areas, I saw that there were armed
individuals in front of that same business. So I was like,
(12:43):
this is an extension of the story that we saw
last night. We had the volunteer fire brigade, and now
we have the volunteer cops out here. And so I
immediately dropped what I was doing and I went out there,
and the first person who was standing right in front
of that business was Kyle Rittenhouse, and I just said,
does anyone want to do an interview about why you
guys are here? That was kind of our job is
just ask people, you know, why are you out here?
Speaker 3 (13:03):
What do you think you're doing?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
And he told me, you know, he had his MT
PAC said he was a trained which turned out to
not be true, but he also had his rifle, and
so he said that he was providing medical attention to
protesters who had been injured by riot munitions, but also
defending the business with the rifle. So I actually followed
Kyle through the I guess, you know, it was like
(13:28):
basically a dispersed riot at this point, where there were
a couple hundred protesters who had been pushed away from
the courthouse. And I noticed immediately he was you know,
shouting medical, does anyone need medical attention?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Obviously he had the intention.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Of helping these people, but they didn't view it that
way because they saw his rifle. And if it hadn't
been my younger brother, I would have dragged him out
of there at that moment. But my job was to
be a fly on the wall, and so, you know,
I noticed that people were perceiving him negatively, and actually
I went to interview a couple of people. There were
four guys who were standing there yelling at him, yelling
(14:03):
at Kyle, you think you're in a movie, man, you
think you're cool. So I went to interview them, ask
him why they, you know, didn't view Kyle's role in
that situation as positively as Kyle viewed himself, and I
aimed the camera at them. One of the guys had
a handgun and his waistband. He stood up. Another guy
had some bricks in his hand. He looked like he
wanted to smash my head, and I used my go
to move to diffuse the situation. I put my phone away.
(14:25):
I was like, I just want to hear from you guys.
Does anyone want a white claw? So I actually, like,
this is now four minutes before the shooting. I offered
a white claw to the guy with the handgun, and
then he actually laughed. It broke the ice. We started
to talk as I cracked it, and then I saw
Kyle running down the street with his ar in one
hand and a small fire extinguisher in the other, like
literally running. So I just dropped what I was doing.
(14:48):
I was like, sorry, guys, I gotta go, and I
followed Kyle down the street and called my coworker Shelby.
I said, something's about to go down. I don't know
what's going on. That was literally the moment that Rosenbaum
emerged from the side of the street screamed at Kyle.
Kyle started to run. I thought I took a video.
I took a photo of the ground. It turns out,
(15:09):
and I was running by behind Rosenbaum, who was chasing rittenhouse.
A pop went off that I didn't know at the time,
but it was a gunshot, and Kyle's turned around. He
had his gun aim for forty five degrees at the
fords the ground, and Rosenbaum screamed FU and dove for
the weapon. Kyle dodged and shot four shots in zero
point seven seconds. And the last thing that was, you know,
(15:33):
interesting about my role in the whole thing was that
I told the police that I looked down at the
moment of the shooting and didn't see him collapse rosenbaumb
collapse because I felt something go past my legs, and
so they took what I said looking down feeling something
go past my legs and made me a victim in
the case as well.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
And I didn't ask to be named a victim.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
But there was a weird juggling act where I had
my best friend's dad who's a criminal lawyer. He was like,
you can have them pull back the charges and not
be a victim anymore. You can ask for that, but
then you'll be deemed as a biased witness. He was
trying to help Kyle, and that'll actually make your testimony
less credible. So you actually just the best thing to
(16:18):
do is just ride it out. And so I had
to go through the process of being both a key
witness and a named victim. And it's possible in Wisconsin
you're acquitted of self defense but charged with reckless endangerment
of another individual. So I was terrified personally that, you know,
he would be acquitted on all charges except for the
twelve years that the maximum that sentence that was associated
(16:40):
with my victimhood.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I guess, wait, so around so one of the discharge
rounds when he was defending himself went past your legs.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, and actually the FBI released surveillance footage from Assessana
that they were flying overhead, not until a year. You know,
people were saying he's lying, that didn't happen, But they
had an infrared camera up above the protest and you
can see the heat signature of the bullet right in
front of me in that footage. So, I mean, I
(17:10):
knew that I felt something. That's why I looked down
and I stamped my legs to make sure I was okay.
So I think maybe it was like a piece of
concrete or something that skimmed past my nylon pants. But uh,
I guess that raises another question of if if the
FBI had Assessmo overhead, you know, why was the city
allowed to burn and be destroyed in the way.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah, where were the police during all of this?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Well, they were guarding the courthouse, and the National Guard
was present as well, and they were guarding the courthouse.
But they, you know, the police in Kenosha, like in
d C. This never would have happened because DC cops,
you know, they know what they're doing. Obviously, January sixth
is another story which we can get into.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
We're we're going to get into that in a minute.
Yeah yeah, but uh yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
They so they weren't prepared for it, They didn't know
how to do riot control, and once they were, you know,
they're defending the courthouse, but they weren't defending the small
businesses that were surrounding the area. So this, you know,
those three nights in a row of just wide scale
arson throughout the city.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Well let's go to j six here coming up in
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January sixth. What'd you see? What happened? What do we
need to know?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Okay, well, I guess the story of January sixth obviously
starts with the election. I was on the ground in
DC for the election night. Obviously, things weren't resolved on
that night, and I was there for Stop to Steal one,
which you saw thousands of Trump supporters come to DC
and they were wearing their red hats, and as they
left the Ellipse area on that first Stopped the Steal,
(19:36):
they went kind of helplessly through BLM Plaza, which is
kind of like walking through BLM Plaza with a Maga
hat is like walking into a hornet's nest. But most
of these people were from, you know, around the country.
They didn't know what they were walking into. So we
filmed a variety of assaults on people who had Maga hats,
and the second stop the Steal in December, the Proud
(19:57):
Boys came in force because after all that footage of
Maga people getting beat up and assaulted, they basically came
to you know, I guess give it back to them.
And so we saw like widespread, like medieval style street
battles in downtown d C at Stop the Steel too
in December, and so by January sixth, like I had
(20:20):
this is after Kenosha too, So I had my bulletproof vest,
my bulletproof backpack, my bulletproof helmet, and my gas mask.
I thought all everything was going to pop off around dark,
as it had with the previous two. So I was
at home where I had internet. I was streaming the
Trump rally. I had five people on the ground where
such a big crowd and maybe they were using jammers too,
who knows, but nobody had cell service down there. So
I was waiting until later to go down and my
(20:43):
now wife then girlfriend was on the top of Rayburn,
which is a house office building, and she was like,
I see cops running in opposite directions. This is at
like one pm. And I was like, okay, that's it.
Then I guess the poop has hit the fan quicker
than I thought, so I geared up.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
I was in the uber with my.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Putting my literally putting my bulletproof vest on, putting my
gas mask, adjusting it so it fit with my ballistic helmet,
and I hit traffic, and I brought my skateboard, knowing
I was going to hit traffic, and I skate boarded
down to the western front where the inauguration tower and
all that was. And this is about now, just after
two pm. And my first thought when I got down
there was why is it that I'm better prepared than
(21:22):
almost all of these cops. So I had my gas mask,
and I'm walking in between the two sides clashing a
lot of the On the Maga side they had pepper spray.
The cops had pepper spray, and so as each side
got pepper spray, they'd be running away, and I was
just standing in between. You know, my hands were burning
a little bit, but I was able to see and
able to function because I was prepared. And I climbed
(21:44):
up into the inauguration tower and filmed the breaking of
the police lines. And then once I saw them streaming in,
I was like, same as the BLM stuff. I'm not
going to trust the FEDS or the cops to tell
us what happened. I'm not going to trust the protesters
to tell us what happened. My job is to go
in there and get in the middle of it. And
I ended up on the other side of the house
doors where the sergeant at arms had their gunstrawn, and
(22:05):
that famous photo of the guy sticking his face through
the glass. He I was right behind that guy, so
I thought maybe I was going to get caught in
the crossfire yet again. After knocha, literally eight minutes later,
the cops finally peeled everybody off those doors. They got reinforcements.
I went into the rotunda and there was a guy
who had rolled a joint and was smoking a joint.
(22:27):
So that just shows like the scope of you know,
one side said it was totally peaceful. The other side
said they're all insurrectionists. It's the same as the BLM stuff.
The overwhelming majority were peaceful, but there's a small group
of people who were trying to break into those doors
and get into where the votes were being counted. So
both things can be true at the same time.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Did the FBI ever come knocking on your door and
try to ask you a lot of questions about this.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Well, it's interesting. I have had at the time congressional
press credentials, so I was allowed to be in there
regardless of whether or not there was a riot taking place.
Interest they did not, and I thought that they would,
because you know, I published my footage. But you know,
you have to think that they're going to ask me,
do you have anything else? You know, do you have
(23:13):
anything else on your phone or do you have any
like we were in a bunch of different group chats
with like Proud Boys telegram chats, you know, So like,
how was it that through you know, my own intelligence gathering,
I was better prepared than the police were on that
day and knew that the o they were going to
be there was going to be violence. That's a question
(23:34):
that I still don't have the answer to.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Did you have any Did you have any sense from
the people who were there that they were concerned that
some of the people who were either in the run
up to this or during it, getting the crowd hyped up,
might have been plants? Is that something that ever came
up among the discussions with you know, these people these
telegram chats et cetera.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Definitely in reeps.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Was there the night before, and that video actually came
up in one of the chats. I remember he was saying,
we need to go into the capitol. That was on
January fifth, And actually I didn't realize until after the fact,
but as I was walking down the line, Ray Epps
is in my footage. He was right at the base
of the inauguration tower and he actually left right as
everybody was breaking the line. So he walked away right
(24:19):
as I got to the bottom of that tower and
climbed up. But there were, I mean dozens of different
interactions where people were screaming stop, stop, you know. So
some people were smashing into police shields and fighting with
the cops and pepper spray and them and a lot
of others were saying, guys, we have to stop this.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
What are you guys doing?
Speaker 2 (24:39):
So there is this like Lord of the Flies effect
that I call it, where you know, it only takes
one or two or three or four in a huge
group of people to start banging into police and once
the pepper spray comes out, once the tier guys comes out,
a different part of your brain turns on you see
a guy with a maga hat, get billy clubb down
to the ground, and you turn into a primal person.
(25:01):
You know, and I think, especially like in the modern day,
we don't really we're not in touch with that side
of the human psyche. But when that kind of happens,
you you know, you're not thinking anymore so much as
just running on primal circuitry.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
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(25:58):
pepper cloud spray, right, I want to be yeah, you
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Speaker 4 (26:03):
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this number eight four four A two four safe. That's
eight four four eight two four safe. Rich This has
been fascinating. I really, I'm I already have my copy
obviously here Riot Diet. I would tell everyone listening and
everyone watching please go get.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Their copy as well.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
These stories. You know.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
I did a little side note here when I first
so I came out of the CIA and I wasn't
looking to do media, and I got hired by Glenn
Back to do national security analysis for the Blaze. And
the first thing though, where I got to kind of
do reporting or you know, going out was Occupy Wall
Street and people think of Occupy Wall Street as just
(27:07):
this kind of weird like hippie fest down in Zuccati Park,
and there certainly was that, and you know it was,
but I was also there when they cleaned that thing
out and the cops were like throwing people around and
pepper spraying everybody and kettling everybody. I was there for
some of the antifa anti cop things that kind of
broke off of Occupy Wall Street during that people forget
(27:29):
Occupy Wall Streets. Zuccati Park was like the hub, but
there were other events. You know, they would meet up
in other places in the city and do this madness
and black block guys I remember, you know, NYPD guys
throwing them on the ground and pepper spraying people and stuff.
Was there was some mayhem going on with that, So
that was I don't know, it was interesting stuff to
see at the time, and obviously it grew and grew
(27:51):
to the point where where you were looking at this
stuff it got to you know, some some of the
biggest events in our recent sort of political and domestic
history involved some of this stuff. So really interesting to
hear you.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
And that's why that's why they they came out and
supported BLM, all the big corporations, because after Occupy they said, well,
if we don't want to, if we can't beat them
and join them, right.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Interesting, I hadn't really even thought about that, yeah, because
I mean, originally it was all about it wasn't really
about Wall Street. It was more about sort of corporate
and bank bailouts, right. I mean it's funny because as
you know, Wall Street, they're in Zukati Park, Like Wall
Street now is basically a tourist attraction. You know, there's
some stuff down there, but actual banking is really in
Midtown Manhattan. That's where all the big bank's headquarters are now.
(28:33):
Except for a couple there's like Goldman down downtown, a
few others. But yeah, I'm just wondering this. It feels
like a lull right now. I want to close with this.
Feels like a lull in the left wing. You know,
Street soldier shock brigades. Right, haven't seen a lot of Antifa.
Havn't we got a Trump inauguration coming up? What are
you hearing?
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Like?
Speaker 1 (28:53):
We didn't see the riots after the Trump win yet
but are we gonna see riots? Are they waiting for
the deportation stuff to begin and they're gonna start getting
all anarchists radical over that? Like what do you see
or have they just are they taking a breather here?
I mean, they don't have day jobs, so what are
they doing?
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Richie?
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Well, it definitely doesn't benefit if the incumbent party has
chaos under their watch. So I think the inauguration is
when that stuff's going to kick back off because Trump's
back in power, and if you have chaos under Trump,
then Trump looks bad, you know, then he brings in
his his National Guard or DHS troops and then he's
(29:32):
the fascist that they all want him to be. So
I think definitely we'll see protests, inauguration clashes with counter
protesters and protesters and inauguration goers, and then I agree,
I think with all of the immigration stuff, I mean,
there's going to be a whole powder keg of different
issues that people are going to be going nuts to.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
These lunatics that you've been covering for years now, and
you've been They're not done, is what you're that? They're
not done.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
I don't think they're No, I don't think I don't
think it's done. Unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Are you going to be at the inauguration?
Speaker 3 (30:03):
I will be.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
You know, I'm trying to retire from this whole riot
beat because you know, I'm trying to you know, I'm
getting a little old. Plus you know, if people recognize you,
that's that's a big issue too. But I will definitely
be at inauguration and you know, we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Save a gas mask for me, buddy, because I'll be
there and uh and riot diet.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Here you go.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
The book. Thank you. It needs to be extra large.
I got a big head and a lot of hair,
so yeah, absolutely, Richie, great work man. Congrats on the book,
and thank you for joining us here on a Buck Breef.
Appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Thanks for having me Buck
Host
Buck Sexton
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