Episode 159: Fear & Worship in Washington DC feat Donie O'Sullivan
Trump appeared on jumbotrons at a 9/11 event on the National Mall — a revivalist Christian political rally and concert organized by musician and would-be politician Sean Feucht. Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri attended in person, imploring God to help with the reversing of Roe V Wade. We spoke to Donie O'Sullivan, repeat guest and correspondent for CNN, about his path covering MAGA, QAnon, and other right wing events this year; as well as why he ended up at this specific 9/11 event on the National Mall.
↓↓↓↓ SUBSCRIBE FOR $5 A MONTH SO YOU DON'T MISS THE SECOND WEEKLY EPISODE ↓↓↓↓
https://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous
Follow Donie O'Sullivan: http://twitter.com/donie
QAA Merch / Join the Discord Community / Find the Lost Episodes / Etc: https://qanonanonymous.com
Episode music by Matthew Delatorre (http://implantcreative.com)
Welcome, listener, to Chapter 159 of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, the Fear and Worship in Washington, D.C.
episode.
As always, we are your hosts, Jake Rokitansky, Julian Field, and Travis View.
This week, we're going to be exploring how the revivalist Christian movement And especially far-right political activist and popular musician Sean Foyt came together in Washington D.C.
on September 11th and 12th to mix religion with politics and music on the National Mall.
The event included a pre-recorded speech by Donald Trump, who used the opportunity to address 9-11 and endorsed Sean Foyt's Let Us Worship Tour.
Also in attendance was Senator Josh Hawley, who was there to rally political support behind the anti-choice activists who have made massive inroads lately in Texas, among other places.
In our latest premium episode, number 140, we took a look at how the Spygate-obsessed Cold War faction of QAnon are doing, spinning out into elaborate conspiracy theories like Patel Patriot's devolution.
In contrast, the more Christ-focused faction offers a mystical version of reality, in which Trump is no longer the be-all, end-all.
Their focus is on a broader revival, or Great Awakening, they believe is sweeping America, and ushering in law and order in the process.
We'll also be examining how George W. Bush plays into this entire thing, and how fears of a new January 6th-style event are making the Capitol extra jittery about September 18th.
This week, we've got repeat guest and correspondent for CNN Donnie O'Sullivan back on the podcast to tell us about his experience in 2021 so far, and what it was like to attend the somewhat underwhelming Sean Foyt event in Washington, D.C.
But before all that, Today I bring you news of the plague and how it has made ever present death even more prominent in our lives and minds.
That's funny.
Travis just wandered.
He's he's walking through the village square.
He's followed by at least 100 people.
They all have small whips and they are giving it to their backs.
So the country is currently struggling through the fourth wave of the pandemic, which started in July.
Those hardest hit by this wave are the unvaccinated, which include children too young for the vaccine, as well as the most vulnerable of the vaccinated, which include the elderly and the immunocompromised.
It has also affected the conspiracist and right-wing radio host community, who are overwhelmingly anti-vaxxers.
Just in this past few weeks, it was announced that two prominent QAnon promoters succumbed to the disease.
The first death was Robert David Steele, a retired CIA agent and Marine who became an influential conspiracist.
He was a key promoter of the adrenochrome conspiracy theory and child sex trafficking panic that you can see in QAnon narratives.
This podcast first referenced Robert David Steele's work all the way back in 2018 in our 11th episode, and this was back when I was just a guest, when you put featuring Travis View on the podcast episode titles.
I don't know about you, but I miss those days.
Yeah, you know?
Jake, we need to take care of this problem.
I honestly mourn the loss of the world that had little use for my interest and expertise.
I also mourn this world.
That world was OK.
That world was manageable.
It was a weird little niche thing that only weirdos liked.
It didn't seem to have a great deal of sort of sway over mainstream politics.
It was fun.
We were talking in Julian's apartment about crazy things we saw on the internet.
This was back when Jake was still trying to rebuild a Thomas Wichter tweet storm, but using mainstream media articles.
I do miss it.
These were the days when you could hop into a 3v3 NBA 2K match in the Pro-Am and not see people with Trump spray-painted across their jerseys, red, white, and blue, you know, color waves.
You know, these were better times.
Yeah, yeah.
It was also a healthier world in which most people had no idea what the hell QAnon was.
And instead of being sort of just shorthand for wild conspiracists.
Steele promoted baseless conspiracy theories about 9-11, Sandy Hook, and the pandemic.
But he managed to gain some headlines back in 2017 when he claimed that NASA had a slave colony composed of children on Mars.
And this led to NASA publicly denying the claim.
Like, journalists reached out to NASA and they had to deny that NASA has slave children on another planet.
They were like, bitch, we could barely get our rover there!
Goddammit!
That technology is not yet developed.
Hold on to your hats.
It may come, but not quite yet.
I wonder if the CIA even needs to basically run any kind of Counterintelligence operations, or if their ex-agents are having their brains slowly rot from a combination of Havana Syndrome and Cold War Syndrome to the point where it effectively has created a fantastic counterintelligence unit, just destroying any kind of attempt to build a narrative that makes sense that is not the government's, nor does it involve children slaves on Mars.
We always thought that they were trying to pill the population, but actually they were just trying to pill their own so they could create splinter cell units that would go out onto the internet and do their work for them.
In Steele's last blog post, he posted a selfie wearing an oxygen mask in a hospital and wrote, Quote, With love to you all, I survived.
I went in at 77 oxygenation.
I'm up to 94.
I will not take the vaccination, though I did test positive for whatever they're calling COVID today.
But the bottom line is that my lungs are not functioning.
With their death gargle, they will say something stupid.
I mean, here's the thing about Steele is that is that he poisoned the minds of untold numbers of people.
He made people stressed and anxious over tortured children that don't really exist.
He did horrible things to the minds of many vulnerable and innocent people.
And he should certainly be judged for that.
But he is a man of his convictions.
He did not Get the vaccine.
And even in his dying days, he put COVID in quotes as if the plague, the pandemic was fake.
Steele's death was announced by his friend and fellow conspiracy theorist Mark Tassi, who immediately started spinning a baseless conspiracy theory about Steele's death.
So Tassi insinuated that Steele was killed or is allowed to die in order to hurt Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
I like the image of just this horde of like QAnon followers and when they die, their soul like exit their body in ghost form and just go print against a mural on the wall and they become part of like the conspiracy, the history of it, the tapestry.
I see a long and beautiful mural in my mind.
It will be drawn on Trump's wall and it will depict the Great Awakening.
Of course.
They're trying to make Florida look bad.
Why?
Why?
Because DeSantis is not going along with the agenda.
So they're trying to—they are targeting Florida.
A fitting tribute to Steele.
In the announcement of his death, his friend spins a conspiracy theory about his death, which is, I think, what Steele would have wanted.
Definitely, yeah.
If you get folded into a conspiracy, you know what they say, you live forever.
It's not even doing what he loves, it's becoming what he loves.
The other recent COVID-related death was that of 64-year-old Chicago-area QAnon activist Veronica Wolski.
Long before she got into QAnon, she made a name for herself holding demonstrations on a bridge above the Kennedy Expressway, where she displayed homemade signs for passing motorists.
But back in 2016, her signs expressed support for then-presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, which is just a fact.
I'm not suggesting that there's a Bernie the QAnon pipeline necessarily.
I'm not doing horseshoe theory over here.
But it's a fact that Veronica Wolsky was a diehard Bernie or Buster before she got into QAnon.
After she got into QAnon, she became, I think, one of the craftiest QAnon promoters.
In addition to making the signs on the bridge, she made blue QAnon bracelets, a QAnon quilt that was auctioned off at the Dallas QAnon Conference, and even children's Halloween costumes that were QAnon-themed that she made at the request of some of her fans.
Her QAnon activism also got her a chance to personally meet General Michael Flynn, who signed one of her shirts.
And wore her bracelets.
Yes, and wore her bracelets.
Prior to her death, Wolski was hospitalized at Amita Health Resurrection Medical Center.
While there, her supporters organized a harassment campaign over the health facility's refusal to give her ivermectin to treat her COVID.
QAnon lawyer Lynn Wood even participated in this campaign.
Yes.
Tell me your name again.
It's JP.
JP.
My name is Len Wood.
I'm a lawyer.
I'm calling you from South Carolina.
You have a patient in your hospital named Veronica Wolski.
The individual with her medical power of attorney is demanding that she be released immediately.
There's an ambulance.
Wait, I'm not through yet.
There's an ambulance waiting for her outside.
There is a medical doctor waiting for her to treat her.
If you do not release her, you're going to be guilty of murder.
Do you understand what murder is?
Talking to the answering machine.
Yeah.
Consider how just incredibly awful and insane this whole situation is.
We have someone in the hospital who is there in all probability because she refused to take the very effective vaccine.
And while there, the hospital suffers a bizarre harassment campaign demanding that they provide her with an ineffective medicine.
Yeah, I mean, everything about this is just bizarre, and it sucks.
And I don't feel good about this at all, especially since, you know, Wolski had a teenage daughter that she leaves behind that she sometimes mentioned in her posts.
So, you know, the decisions of these conspiracists don't just harm themselves, they harm, you know, the healthcare workers around them, they harm their family.
It's just pain that resonates because their minds have been poisoned with nonsense and disinformation and false hope.
One of the reasons that there are lots of reasons that I don't like, you know, gloating over the death of anyone, even people who say destructive things is like, you know, number one, because I don't know, I think I feel that does bad things to my soul.
And, and number two, because we don't know what the next few years are bring, maybe the dead are the lucky ones.
Holy shit.
Goth Travis lives!
Dude, Travis, I can't believe that I just found out today that Travis views all of us as, like, the people, like, the leftovers, like that HBO show, that great HBO show, where, like, half of the population disappears and, like, the people that are, like, left behind are essentially, like, in purgatory.
I guess it tracks.
Travis is the only person who has ghostwritten for both Edgar Allan Poe and The Cure.
9-11 and the Revivalist Great Awakening Recently, we examined the horrifying double murder committed by Matthew Coleman, who ended the life of both of his young children and told the FBI that QAnon and Illuminati conspiracy theories had led him to the act.
In that episode, we examined a figure Coleman was following on Facebook and Instagram, singer and political activist Sean Voight.
Voight's music is a mainstay among the new wave of Revivalist Christians attempting to usher in a Great Awakening to Jesus in America.
Foyt comes from Redding, California, where the influential Calvary Chapel and Bethel Church are based.
He grew in popularity after being signed to the Jesus Culture music label run by Bethel Music, which is a subdivision of the church.
In 2020, Foyt ran for Congress in California's 3rd District as a Republican.
He focused on the usual COVID denialism, anti-abortion, hatred for Antifa, Black Lives Matter, liberals, of course.
He published photos of himself visiting the Oval Office where he put a hand on Trump and supposedly prayed for him.
He obviously loves Pence.
But the result of this was just a third place in his Republican primary.
Then Foyt made a point to visit areas where political unrest had occurred.
Minneapolis after George Floyd, Kenosha after the Rittenhouse shooting, and Portland, Oregon where he held a concert he called Riots to Revival.
A recurring theme of his often-permitless musical Let Us Worship Tour was, of course, resistance to COVID-19, restrictions, and mask mandates.
The finale of this controversial and often violence-inciting tour was set to be held on September 11th and 12th on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
This is the hour for us to take a stand.
We gotta be unapologetic, we gotta be bold, and we gotta take our cities back.
Because cities like Seattle and Portland, the last two I've been in, I love those cities.
But they are under attack by demonic forces.
And listen, our battle's not against flesh and blood, we know that, it's powers and principalities.
But those powers and principalities actually are inside of people.
And so we got to take a stand.
We got to have discernment.
And we got to be people that are bold.
We got to be people that are willing to take a stand.
And that's what happened last night.
Because of the boldness of the Church of Portland, so many people were brought into the kingdom.
Pastors were rejuvenated.
People's hearts were set on fire.
And America saw hope.
And so we're excited.
September 11th to 12th.
We're gonna be on the mall in Washington, D.C., and listen, we need tens of thousands of you guys to show up.
Now more than ever, we need to see this.
This is not political.
This is biblical, man.
We have a call for revival in this season, and I can't wait to see you guys there.
Hopefully this brought a little bit of clarity, and we'll continue to share more about it tomorrow.
I'm gonna hammer your feeds with the good news of what God did.
He gets all the glory.
He gets all of the glory and all of the honor and all of the praise.
And we love, we love, we love, we love it when he shows up.
Only heaven can do what happened last night.
It was profound.
God bless you guys.
I pray boldness will overcome you tonight.
And that what you saw in Portland, I pray that that would happen in cities across America.
We start to take our cities back for Jesus.
Bless you guys.
Now, of course, it's funny that he says this is not political because it turns out that Donald Trump and Josh Hawley would make appearances, the former in a pre-recorded video and the latter in person.
I do want to comment on something that he said there.
We're talking about we're struggling against powers and principalities, but the ones that embody people.
I thought it was really, really interesting, because that's kind of like a twist on a Bible verse that says, "...for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
That's usually meant to say, well, we're not fighting our fellow people.
We're fighting a spiritual war.
But he's putting this weird twist on it.
We're saying, no, no, no, these spiritual forces, these evil forces are embodied within people.
Yeah.
Gotta give the people somebody to fight.
These spirits and bad feelings, Travis, they don't cut it anymore, you know?
Right.
You need to say like, OK, yes, we are fighting a spiritual war against demons, but those demons are basically possessed within, you know, the liberals or whoever you hate.
Yeah, it's like I am, you know, trying to live a healthy, clean life, you know, and soak in only, you know, soulful goodness that happens to be embodied in this Snickers bar.
And inside the Snickers bar is, you know, is my health and my, you know, never mind.
This one had legs.
I really am sad to see it go.
I'm sad to see it go.
Never forget the Snickers bit, folks.
Write in to find out the rest.
Definitely DM Jake about it.
DM me.
I should have never started smoking weed again.
Yeah, you're right, Travis, you know, and, you know, what defined his event in Portland was that he was photographed with all these, like, you know, kind of ex-military guys, including a Proud Boy and someone who participated in the January 6th storming of the Capitol, and was like, oh, you know, if you don't find Jesus, like, they'll help you, kind of.
thing, like really very violent rhetoric around this stuff.
And I think one thing that made Washington DC different is that it's on
fucking lockdown. So it, I think that, um, I think he shot too big, man.
Like I think he shot too big. He got big speakers.
He was very excited to go there. He thought it would be the finale.
And as we'll see, you know, the numbers just weren't there.
Anyways, here was the teaser for it used to encourage people to
attend it.
God is at work and his timing is perfect.
When we contacted the National Park Service requesting permits for our big event in D.C., they only had one weekend open.
It was the weekend of September 11th and 12th.
That's right, the 20-year anniversary of 9-11.
I knew in that moment God had something huge planned for this weekend, something we've never seen before.
The attacks on America on 9-11 were evil.
They destroyed lives and marked an entire generation.
The attacks also brought us together as a nation and gave us new heroes.
The first responders who ran into burning buildings to save lives.
The warriors who volunteered to be sent to foreign lands to fight evil terrorists.
9-11 was a consequential day in American history.
It's a day we'll never forget.
And I believe God circled that date on the calendar so that we could come together 20 years later and watch God do something brand new.
Our nation has been rocked by the pandemic, the lockdowns, violence, and this catastrophe abroad.
I believe God is calling us to gather in DC and to contend in the place of prayer and worship for revival in America.
He wants us to seek Him.
He wants us to tune our hearts to Him because He has something special He wants to do in the church and in our nation.
And I, for one, cannot wait to see what He's about to do.
Listen, you do not want to miss this gathering on September 11th and 12th on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
We'll see you there.
This guy looks like an NPC from my snowboarding video game.
Have you listened to any of his music?
Is it good?
Is it bad?
No, it's like stadium soft rock and that kind of stuff.
He writes big anthems where all the words are about loving Jesus and God and all this stuff.
And he leads people into very long versions of them that become almost trance-like, where they repeat the same thing over and over, people start weeping, they maybe will call for a prayer, people will rush to the stage.
I don't know, it's a mix of, like, real spiritual togetherness, mass hysteria, and just enjoying a concert.
It's a very strange kind of mix.
And he's, like, very popular.
Like, is this guy wealthy?
He's a rich person because of this?
I think he's rich enough to throw these concerts non-stop and, you know, he ran for government.
He's probably going to try to do it again.
I think he's okay.
Yeah, yeah.
I think he's a big and influential figure in a movement that is actually quite wealthy, that's funded by people back in California who make a lot of money and really believe in this great awakening that's coming.
So, like I said, although Foyt spoke pretty brashly about the confrontations in other cities that his security squad had with Antifa, it seems like this sheer pressure of holding the concert in the heart of Washington, D.C.
with all the walls and all the memories of January 6th kind of dampened this combativeness, and he also began to worry about the fact that he had to pay $89,000 for the installation of interlocking plastic tiles meant to protect the grass from the attendees' feet.
So here he is trying to spin this into positivity.
I'm standing on the National Mall holding in my hands our public gathering permit from the United States Department of the Interior.
We're ready to go.
I'm standing on our $89,000 dance floor.
This is all the turf coverage they're making us do for Lettuce Worship September 11th and 12th.
89,000 guys!
So we need your help to donate, but we also need you to show up and use this.
Come on, we got a dance floor with the most epic backdrop ever for America.
This is going to be incredible.
You don't want to miss it.
September 11th and 12th, this Saturday and Sunday.
We'll see you here.
So was that a condition of the permit that they needed something solid to cover the grass so they don't damage the grass for this dance event?
Yeah, it's like a concert, and I think if you're throwing a concert on the National Mall, you have to not fuck up the grass, and he wanted two days, and he wanted a certain size, and they charged him $89,000.
And he was able to very, very cleverly integrate that high dollar amount into his marketing for the event.
Yeah, yeah, he shows it on the screen like a YouTuber.
89K Dance Floor!
Guys, can you believe it?
This is wild, isn't it?
I'm swimming in his love with this $89,000.
Can you believe it?
Come on here!
Move your feet!
Also donate!
A little out of my league.
You can even see in his face.
I'm trying to think of a time from my own life when I was surprised with a giant build.
I just wasn't expecting.
Never.
Because I purposely didn't put myself in those situations.
That's good.
That's very good.
That's good of you.
You know how to budget.
But he's visibly sweating.
You can see, in some ways, the terror in his eyes.
He's not laughing.
But he's laughing, if you know what I mean.
This is where things get a bit weird.
So not only did he do this concert that lasted two days, but he also held this weird, smaller rally concert right in front of the White House, just across the street with a little fence, during which his daughter spoke.
Put your hands up.
Listen, we are having church in front of the White House this morning.
But I believe the presence of God can invade inside of that building.
So right now, we just lift up Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Lord, and we say, fill them right now, God.
In every room in that building, God, would your presence be known and felt?
God, I just prophesy right now that Hunter Biden would be a prodigal son that would have an encounter with you, that
would be delivered from addiction, and you would use him.
And only Jesus Christ can bring deliverance home!
Whoever you are, whoever you are on the rooftop, we're praying for you!
I can only choose this Christ to bring deliverance.
Whoever you are, whoever you are on the rooftop, we're praying for you.
We're praying for you, lovers on the roof. We're praying for you.
We're praying for you.
I pray for that the Holy Spirit will hit the White House right now.
I just see a light switch, you know, when you turn the lights on.
I feel like God is turning the lights on because it's dark, but he turns the darkness into light.
He turns the darkness, he turns the fear into light, peace, faith.
And I just declare that over the White House, over Joe Biden, over everyone that's scared in there, that they'll just feel heaven come over them right now.
There will be no end!
[Music]
Travis you want to take a stab at describing what you saw there?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I saw a young girl giving a quite confident speech about how she wishes to turn the White House from dark to light, which is, of course, a common QAnon phrase.
I don't think we talk enough about how evangelical Christianity is able to turn people into, I guess, talented, confident public speakers, because, you know, praising and worshiping is such an integral part of it.
But also the entire crowd jumping and chanting and yelling at the White House, falling to their knees and looking, I think, happier than I have experienced in many, many years.
I'll be honest, I was half expecting the entire White House to, like, uproot from its foundation and just, like, float and become like a sky castle.
I mean, she says she wants the Holy Spirit to hit the White House, which sounds a lot like, I don't know, that Independence Day movie?
Could the Holy Spirit hover above the White House and, you know, hit it with its beautiful beam of light, shattering it to a billion pieces?
This looks like evangelicals trying to exercise the White House.
Yeah, that's what it looks like.
What about the idea that Hunter Biden could become a prodigal son by getting sober, finding Jesus, and then being the one to convert Joe Biden and his family?
Convert them from Catholicism?
Convert Biden?
Yeah.
Biden goes to church?
Biden's a church-going guy.
But he's not the right one.
He's one of them dirty Catholics, not an evangelical Protestant.
These people don't believe that there's a church anyways.
They believe that they're anti-papist and they believe that the church is everywhere.
That's why they go and do these kind of Pentecostalist style revival like tent events.
Unfortunately, the main event seems to have been under-attended.
The thousands promised by Foyt ended up probably less than a single thousand in my visual estimation.
Nonetheless, he had prepared some heavy hitters who would dispel the notion that there was nothing political about the gathering.
Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri, infamous for appearing to support the January 6th storming of the Capitol by raising his fist, emphasized a strong anti-choice message, which is very popular in these circles.
Just a couple of months, most important Supreme Court case in over 30 years when it comes to the right to life.
So let's just pray for that now.
Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are the Lord over every institution, including the Supreme Court of the United States.
And we thank you that you gave us in this country a great Constitution that protects the right to life.
And we pray, Lord, that you would open the eyes of our Supreme Court justices to see the truth and to love justice.
And they would say justice would be done, that the unborn would be protected, that the innocent unborn would be protected in this country, that we would be a country that values the innocent unborn and innocent life, and it would begin this fall.
Lord, we pray you begin in a mighty way, that you would begin to turn the tide at the U.S.
Supreme Court this fall with this case.
Lord, we thank you for this moment in history.
It's a turning point moment in history.
Lord, would you now come in your power, and would you turn the tide in our country.
Would you turn the tide for life?
And would it begin, Lord, right now?
Would it begin right here?
Would it begin right up at that building?
In the name of the Lord Jesus, amen.
Come on, extend your hand to Josh.
I want to pray.
Lord, we ask you for wisdom and discernment on everybody that's working on this case.
Lord we pray for Josh, for his wife, for his family, for the other lawyers and legal experts
God that are fighting for this.
Give them strategies from heaven God.
Bring confusion to the camp of the enemy.
Let them mess up God.
Let them do things wrong.
God let them mess up.
Bring confusion and chaos to the camp of the enemy.
And we pray God that truth and righteousness and justice would prevail.
Lord we pray for protection over his family, protection over his, over, over everybody
that's working on this case.
God, we pray for an injection of supernatural wisdom and insight from heaven on how to overturn this death decree in our nation.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Come on, give a shout of praise.
Basically a really effective crusade against legal abortion, the choice to make that choice for yourself as a woman.
And I think that, you know, the fact that Trump is on board, Hawley is on board with this movement, means very specific things politically.
And, you know, it's not a coincidence that they're all so damn you know, proud boy adjacent, that there's so many winks to
the far right. This is a very much politicized movement masking itself through ecstatic, you
know, kind of dancing and music making and praise. It's basically you put a smile on, you
use positive words, but what you're doing is you support Trump, right? You support Hawley. We are
forcing the higher...
higher courts to ban abortion. These people are a highly effective social and political
movement in my opinion.
Former President Donald Trump also made an appearance in a pre-recorded video displayed
on two giant screens to each side of the stage. He endorsed Foyt and his movement, also taking
the opportunity to speak about 9/11.
"It is an absolutely profound honor to address all of you gathered at the National Mall on
this very solemn day of remembrance and prayer as our nation commemorates the 20th anniversary
of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 1989."
A terrible day.
I want to thank Sean Foyt and everyone from the amazing Let Us Worship movement for hosting this very beautiful and incredible event.
Since last year, you have brought worship and prayer to 132 cities all across the country, including the largest church service in America right here in our nation's capital.
By uniting citizens of all denominations and backgrounds to promote faith and freedom in America, you are strengthening our entire nation, and we thank you for it.
I love how he's got this set up to kind of like look like he's in the Oval Office and that he's like still president in a weird way.
Like it's so funny that you know you have this sect of QAnon that's like, oh Joe Biden is on like a movie set like pretending to be the president when that's like exactly what Trump was just doing in that video.
It's exactly what it was.
Yeah, yeah.
Honestly, he was basically reading the speech off the prompter without much emotion.
It seemed like a collaboration between MAGA and revivalist Dark Money, and it ended with the bizarre statement that the only possible response to the 9-11 attacks was God.
There is only one true answer to the depth and the evil that we saw on September 11th.
It is God, that is the answer, that stood tall over the wreckage at Ground Zero, where rescuers forged the mighty steel cross from the fallen tower's broken beams.
It is the same site that was seen hundreds of miles away in Shanksville, where the first spontaneous memorial to the heroes of Flight 93 was a simple but beautiful wooden cross.
And it is this same turning to God, the ultimate answer to evil, that we see here today as thousands of Americans gather on the Mall to pray for our beloved nation and to pray for one another.
I want to thank Let Us Worship for calling Americans to 21 days of prayer in the coming weeks.
America is a nation strengthened and sustained by God and the prayers of all his children.
Your faith is a force that our enemies can never, ever extinguish.
Your love of God, family, and country is more powerful It's quite a contrast to see, you know, the on-the-ground true believers, you know, being launched into ecstasy by invoking the name of the Lord with this guy, Trump, who is talking about God with less enthusiasm than he would give to opening up a new golf resort or something.
It's a very specific take on 9-11.
What made me kind of laugh about this is, like, clearly Trump was like, well, instead of making a separate speech for 9-11, I'll just kind of, like, go on Sean Foyt's show, kind of, with a pre-recorded video.
That way I'll be in Washington on the National Mall.
And then he also participated in a big gathering organized by the Moonies, the Unification Church, an also incredibly bizarre pre-recorded speech in which he looked like he was floating through space.
What the fuck is going on?
That was all on 9-11, so he was a busy guy that day.
Yeah.
Just kidding, those were just videos that he recorded.
Yeah, those were videos that he recorded, you know.
Of course.
He's like, Sean, there's probably tens of thousands of people there.
You know how you can tell that he's got more videos to record?
No ad-libs in this one.
He's very, like, by-the-book, very on-script, which is, you know, atypical for him.
This is just the most expensive cameo account in the world.
Yeah.
But it's also building a coalition for his re-election and for all the MAGA movement to rely on when it comes to mobilizing people en masse to vote and also to show up places to protest.
Speaking of presidents who have something to say about 9-11, Bush also made a speech about the event, which I thought, you know, that really takes a pair of brass balls for George W. Bush to come out and commemorate 9-11.
But he seemed to compare it to January 6th and the storming of the Capitol.
This set an already jittery Washington, D.C.
into a minor state of ecstasy.
There were media figures applauding the president's statement, even on the liberal side.
And here's a clip from the speech, and then you'll hear the way CNN contextualized it.
And we have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within.
There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home.
But in their disdainful pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit.
And it is our continuing duty to confront them.
Their determination to defile national symbols, former President Bush said.
Let's bring in Garrett Graff, CNN contributor and the author of The Only Plane in the Sky, An Oral History of 9-11.
Also with us, Juliette Kayyem, CNN National Security Analyst and former Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
And Juliette, let me start with you, because I checked with somebody close to the former president.
Am I reading this right?
When he talks about defiling, National symbols.
Is he talking about the January 6th insurrectionists?
The MAGA terrorists?
And he said, not exclusively, but definitely.
Definitely.
And I think it's a remarkable moment for him to provide the connective tissue of these 20 years.
And we can't forget that the hate and the hatred of pluralism and diversity that the U.S.
represents is a connective tissue.
from 9/11 to 1/6.
So I thought that was important.
And we, those of us in counterterrorism believe that to be true.
There's, the domestic international divide doesn't really apply.
I mean, these terrorists learn tactics from each other.
They've figured out how to expose vulnerabilities.
But I also took President Bush to tell us a warning.
Maybe a warning he didn't heed before 9/11.
People were telling President Bush that the red lights were going off.
And in some ways, if we underestimated Al Qaeda on September 10th, do not underestimate this threat in America right now.
And that's essentially what the former president of the United States was saying about him and a former president from his party.
And just to be clear, we're not equating January 6th with 9-11.
Obviously, they're very remarkably different events.
But the former president, Garrett, was very clearly saying that there is a domestic terrorist threat from within.
They might not have the same ideology.
And I also think it's impossible to disentangle the ideology of January 6th from the political forces unleashed inside the United States after 9-11.
pluralism, they want to attack national symbols.
And I also think it's impossible to disentangle the ideology of January 6th from the political
forces unleashed inside the United States after 9/11.
As a result.
That the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, nativist, nationalist politics that we have seen really
come to the fore of a lot of Republican politics these days, sort of power a lot of the MAGA
movement are a direct result of the political forces sort of unleashed by the U.S. regime.
response to 9-11.
And I actually do agree with President Bush that I think there is a very straight line that you can draw from the U.S.
response to 9-11 to the insurrection on January 6th.
So the last guy kind of says something a bit more based, but, you know, he's essentially reinterpreting Bush so that he can agree with him.
Because I don't think Bush cared about the reaction the U.S.
had to 9-11.
He loved that.
He ran that.
He was the one pushing for anti-Muslim sentiment, talking about war and all of this stuff.
But her, she kind of fucks up.
She says the hatred for pluralism that the United States represent, and they don't correct her.
And, you know, it takes some balls, too, to say, you know, oh yeah, George W. Bush is for pluralism.
I mean, what did you make of this, Travis?
I mean, I just reflect upon, you know, is like, besides the horror of the event itself of 9-11, the, you know, obviously the reaction, the paranoia, the hatred, the expansion of the security state, the expansion of, you know, Cold War tactics, and thinking about, like, and the bizarre overreactions and things that did not actually help much or did not keep us any safer, and then Making a, and listening to Bush, make a parallel.
Be like, oh, well, that, how that happened.
There's also an enemy like that from within.
And I don't know, it, it, it, it chills me a bit.
And, um, honestly.
Yeah, I think these are the kind of ideological building blocks that we're going to build.
More surveillance, more crackdowns, more laws that will infringe on civil rights.
And it seems like everyone's kind of on the same side.
It's just small variants of interpretation, but this CNN analyst Who used to work for Homeland Security, you know, you hear her speak and it's very chilling.
And yeah, applauding George W. Bush for what he has to say about 9-11 is, to me, it is mind-boggling.
And I think this January 6th discourse is really important because it's going to be a big driving force in politics for the two next electoral cycles, at the very least.
Oh yeah!
You know?
That and Afghanistan, probably.
You can see Trump already revving up for it.
When I watch this stuff, I'm like, man, Trump was, like, the greatest gift that the political establishment, like, could have ever had.
Because, like, if there's one thing that almost nearly everybody, you know, that's not a Trump supporter can agree on, is that, like, as long as you're not that guy, Like, it's everything's cool.
Like, W, like, we forgive you.
Like, we forgive all the horrible shit you did.
Like, as long as you're not as bad as, like, the baddest president, you know?
It's just like... What I think is interesting is, like, in the same breath that they say, it was really the reaction to 9-11 that was, you know, way more damaging to our society in the long term than the attacks, which obviously were awful.
But then they're also basically gearing us up to do the same thing about January 6th and Trump—to panic, to change laws, to, you know, kind of make sure this will never happen again through brute force and ideology.
And it is to watch history repeat itself, but quote itself, to inspire itself to repeat itself.
Now, that is the creme de la creme, my friends.
And I'm sorry, it is like, and Tapper tries to save it there at the end to cover his ass, but to say that people who broke into the, and look, I'm not downplaying the January 6th thing, I know people are going to come at me on Twitter for this, I don't fucking care.
To say that people who hijacked an airplane, who crudely with, like, small weapons, like, murdered flight attendants in front of hundreds of people, and then crashed planes into fucking towers that were occupied by thousands of people, to compare them in any way to people who, like, broke into Nancy Pelosi's office and, like, livestreamed and, like, took selfies or like even the shaman who carried like a wooden spear you know into Congress is just like that.
In many cases are so sharp and soft that they ran as soon as they got a little bit of tear gas in their eyes.
Yeah, they ran away with the tear gas.
To put them in the same category?
Fuck you.
Fuck you a thousand times.
It pisses me off.
I don't know why.
Julian, why am I so upset?
You're having a good 9-11.
It's your birthday.
Everyone remembers hearing the 9-11 terrorists before they crashed the plane into the building saying, you should check out my real estate website.
We're sitting with Donnie O'Sullivan, a correspondent for CNN who has been traipsing the country reporting from MAGA rallies and QAnon gatherings.
He recently attended the September 11th event organized by Sean Foyt.
Welcome back on the podcast, Donnie.
Thank you so much for having me.
You know, it is an honor to be here.
It's also quite humbling to be here because last time I was on the podcast, I got messages from so many friends, people in Ireland, people across the U.S.
So many people being like, I heard you, I heard you on the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
Wow, that reporting you do sounds really interesting.
And I was like, hello, dear friend.
Have you watched any of my reporting on the likes of, you know, on CNN, on international television?
Is that a type of podcast?
And they're like, you know.
I haven't seen that.
I haven't seen so much.
So yeah, to my friends who are tuning in, thank you.
But also, you know, check out CNN.com forward slash.
Forward slash what?
I don't know.
You don't even know how to finish the URL!
Forward slash!
I believe it is just CNN.com, but I would have to double check.
I use the app.
Absolutely incredible.
Well, first of all, I kind of want to apologize for telling you about the Sean Foyt event because it seemed like a bit of a dud despite, you know, the appearance of Donald Trump in the pre-recorded video and Josh Hawley, who had quite a speech.
But how did it feel on the ground?
Well, I mean, I was sort of happy to go along.
As we've been digging in, I guess, more since January 6th and really sort of trying to catch up, I guess, to you guys in terms of figuring out how the hell did this country get to where we are?
You know, more and more, I keep coming across the role of religion and the role specifically of Christian nationalism.
So, I had not heard of this guy, Sean, I can't even properly pronounce his last name, Feucht.
Yeah.
Yeah, Sean Feucht.
I had not heard of him, but You said he was holding this event down in the mall in D.C.
on Saturday night, so I went along.
I mean, I gotta say, I went there Saturday evening.
It was pretty, you know, for the most part, the crowd was good vibes.
Folks seemed primarily focused on prayer.
In terms of, you know, I spoke to some folks.
Most people weren't wearing any sort of political symbols.
I did speak to some folks who were wearing Trump hats and things like that, but for the most part, it seemed to be very, very focused on you know, praying.
That being said, you know, I don't believe
FITE went too directly into mask mandates and vaccines
and everything else, but other speakers certainly did there, but
I mean, yeah, it was a pretty upbeat vibe for the most part,
but I sort of got the sense from, you know, particularly what happened in
Portland a few weeks ago and things like that, that maybe I wasn't getting the
full experience.
Maybe things were being a bit toned down a bit for DC and on that day.
So people are kind of in ecstasy.
People are throwing, you know, cigarette packs and condoms on stage because they get rid of their vices that way.
They come to Jesus in these moments.
And then Trump appears for an eight-minute pre-recorded speech on the two screens.
Were you there for that moment?
I was and I was standing at the front catching all the packets of cigarettes and the beer cans so I could take them off.
I was there for the Trump speech.
I mean, Trump didn't really say anything that he hadn't already said elsewhere on 9-11 in that he used the speech and used that occasion to talk a lot about Biden and Afghanistan and what he views as the mishandling of that.
So it was a sort of typical Political speech in that sense.
But I guess it is interesting and notable to see that he is addressing an event like this, you know.
But for the most part, you know, I spoke to some folks there, people talking a bit about the event that's supposed to happen on the 18th of September, whether they're going to go or not.
But for the most part, for a lot of people I spoke to there, they weren't that keen to talk about politics.
But I will say, in terms of the production, and I really don't know a lot about this guy, I mean, it was a pretty expensive setup.
There's a huge stage, lots of cameras, lights.
It was not a cheap event to put on.
Yeah, the pool of money that these people operate within is quite large, because the California churches that are behind the movement, like Bethel Church and Calvary Chapel, they operate in very wealthy areas, so it's not uncommon to have very well-off members and to collect lots of money.
And then I have a feeling there's also some money behind this because they did connect it to the
anti-abortion thing. Josh Hawley made a big speech about that. You know, Trump saying, "Oh, the
only response to 9/11 is God. You have to turn to God." And, you know, there are certain lines
that are clearly like an expensive cameo, where Trump has to pay homage to people that will then
collect votes for him down the line.
But yeah, he even mentioned that it cost him $89,000 to protect the grass for the two days
with that plastic stuff they put down. He was pissed about that. Well, you know,
it's the grass on the National Mall, so I guess you gotta predict.
That's right.
He also, I don't know if you saw this, but they went with a smaller group in front of the White House and were trying to invoke the Holy Spirit.
They had a child saying, I want the Holy Spirit to hit the White House right now.
And, you know, they were asking for God to fill Joe Biden and to fill Kamala Harris.
And then one of the preachers mentioned Sounds like a pretty standard weekend.
Hunter Biden to become the prodigal son that he would recover and find Jesus from his drug
addiction and then he would then convert his family to this revivalist Christianity.
Sounds like a pretty standard weekend.
I will say to the broader point of what I've been looking at more recently in terms of
just how many churches and I've spoken to pastors, evangelical pastors, who are concerned
frankly about their own members of their own flock who are turning away from Jesus, turning
away from God and turning to.
You know, whether it be QAnon or whatever form it takes now, but they're finding, you know, these sort of alternative communities, whether it's online or at these sort of pop-up events like that, which a lot of these things manifest through the internet first and then have these sort of gatherings.
But it's been fascinating to me because You know, I sort of get it, too.
I sort of get why somebody who's going to a church in North Carolina or Alabama every Sunday and are doing what they think is to be a good Christian, saying their prayers, Um, but maybe they're not necessarily seeing, uh, reaping the rewards of that in terms of their life, whether it be through, you know, money or success.
Um, and I think the more and more I talk to people who have gone down conspiracy theory rabbit holes or it's QAnon, vaccines, whatever, You know, people are really finding much more solace in these online communities that have then these sort of gatherings.
Now, I'm not necessarily saying what happened in D.C.
was that, because I frankly don't know enough about it, but it is interesting to see how this is almost competing, as it were, with your sort of traditional religions here in the U.S.
Yeah, we have seen recently a kind of split along various fault lines, but one of them is probably something like what you're mentioning, which is, you know, there's this side that's more political-minded, they're into Spygate stuff, they want the storm to happen, justice, the iron rule of Trump, and they're thinking of ways in which he could get back in office or he's already in office.
And then there's the other side that is really intent on the Great Awakening, which is, the ecstasy of Jesus and a new Christian awakening in America sweeping across the country, and kind of making abortion illegal again, and changing the way people live, and who is, like you said, reaping the rewards.
And so, I mean, have you noticed at any of these events that there's any tension between those two factions, or do events tend to be quite discreet?
That's a really good question.
I mean, I will say what I have found going back to the Trump rallies, you know, Trump has started his rallies again.
You know, he had been showing up at events during the spring, but he was relatively quiet.
He's now got his rallies back going, essentially the same type of rallies you'd have seen throughout 2016 and 2020.
And I went to one of the first one of those events in Ohio over the summer.
And you know, so many people there were just saying to me they were so happy.
They were so excited to be back that they had again this sense of community.
You know, it's a bit like for them, it's a bit like going to a rock concert, but it's a bit more than that.
They have this thing that this connection with people and a place wherever Trump shows up that they don't normally get to experience.
So there's that element of it, of bringing people in.
Then when it comes to the religious aspect of it, you know, I will often actually ask people a lot of these rallies now.
You know, what's your church saying?
What's your pastor saying?
And it really does vary.
It does seem that, like, a lot of pastors say very clear this stuff.
Some dabble in it a bit, and then some, of course, go full scale, tell their people not to be vaccinated, tell their people that the election was stolen.
So it's very much a scale there, I think.
And so in your mind, I mean, over time in 2021, what do you think has changed at these Trump rallies?
You know, I mean, it's like, hey, we're back, they're playing the hits again.
But, you know, what has changed in the way people express themselves and gather?
I think it would come as a surprise to a lot of folks that not necessarily everybody who's even showing up to these Trump rallies today necessarily think or want Trump to run in 2024.
in 2024. They want to win in 2024. And for them, Trump is a very, very important piece of it, but he's not actually the
whole story.
And I think we've actually seen that a lot with the vaccines, right?
Because so many people that I speak to, so many Trump supporters, say, you know, we love Trump, we'll basically do whatever Trump says, we'll die for Trump, but we will not take that vaccine.
And I say to them, you know, well, isn't that the Trump?
It's the Trump vaccine.
I mean, to be fair to the guy, it did come under his leadership and things like that.
And they say, no, the reason why they like Trump is because of his message of individual liberty.
And I think it's very interesting because I think people are confused when they see why isn't Trump pushing the vaccine that he could take credit for?
God knows he loves taking credit for anything.
Why did he not even get the vaccine publicly?
I think it is very much a sense of that the base is controlling Trump in that aspect, that he knows that if he is to push this too hard, he even mentioned taking the vaccine at an Alabama rally a few weeks ago and he got booed.
So I think what's starting to emerge in 2021 is even among the Trump loyalists, the base, the people who are wearing the MAGA hats at these rallies, for them Trump isn't the be all and end all.
A name I keep hearing again and again actually is Ron DeSantis.
So they have a kind of larger project for America that they understand that at the end of the day, he's a bit more like maybe a general that was good and part of a war instead of maybe the emperor?
Yeah, I mean, he is the vehicle, I guess.
And I mean, that's not the case for everybody.
I mean, a lot of folks would love to see Trump run again.
But I do think with the vaccine issue, it is very illustrative that it's to say, this is not all about Trump.
We really like the message, and the message is one of liberty, and the government stays out of my business, and vaccines is not a part of that.
So I think that's quite telling.
I have no doubt, though, if he chooses to run in 24, that folks will totally run in behind him.
I almost wrote this question in, but I'll ask it anyways.
Who do you think will run in 2024?
Who the hell?
And will there be an internal fight or someone just dubbed by Trump?
Yeah, I mean, look, I try and stay out of the predictions business, just given we have many colleagues who spend a lot of time and actually do the calculations through polling.
But again, what I can say anecdotally, I guess, is that the name I will hear again and again is Ron DeSantis.
But look, I mean, I think Trump ultimately still is the leader of the Republican Party, right?
And if he wants to run right now, it's hard to see how somebody would stop him.
But Lord knows it's a long way to 2024 yet.
It is, yeah.
So September 18th is a date that you've been tussling with a bit editorially.
Can you kind of explain the situation to our audience in terms of what might be planned and what you think will actually happen?
Yes, so there is supposed to be a rally in Washington on Saturday, September the 18th, which is in support of the people who took part in the riot, the insurrection.
Um, is to basically express support for them, say that they should all be left out of jail, um, essentially.
There's a lot of concern about it in Capitol Hill.
You know, I guess they are extremely cautious and on edge right now, given what happened on January 6th.
Um, so the, some of the fencing that we saw go up in Washington, uh, around the Capitol is now going back up ahead of this event.
There's a bit of chatter online about this event.
It's a legit event.
It's being organized by, I think, somebody formerly in the Trump orbit.
But I will say, from what I can see, the Ron Watkins of the world and the folks on a lot of the Telegram channels and the Q channels and elsewhere, who are telling people, go to DC on January 6th, are telling people now, stay away.
It's essentially sort of what we saw in the lead up to the inauguration and the lead up to March 4th, where there was a lot of concern in Washington about something was going to happen, and then nothing actually materialized.
And, you know, people like Watkins are saying this could be a false flag, it could be a trap, etc., which, of course, there's no basis in fact for that, but that can work in deterring people from it.
That being said, this is a little bit different to March 4th, I think, in that there is actual group organizing for this.
And whatever intelligence or wherever the authorities in DC are looking online, they are saying they're seeing what they call chatter, a term I hate, chatter about potential violence, potentially people being armed on September 18th.
So look, I think I can understand the caution, you know, on their part.
And so I know you're Irish, but I'd love to know your perspective as a reporter covering 9-11 this year.
And I guess how many years has it been now that you're based in the United States?
Yeah, I've been here almost six years.
And so I know you're Irish, but I'd love to know your perspective as a reporter covering 9/11 this year
And I guess how many years has it been now that you're based in the United States? Yeah, I've been here almost six
years I'm actually a jeweled citizen. My mom is from Boston. So a
proud American and Irish citizen I mean, I went to that prayer service on the Mall on 9-11 this year.
It wasn't an overtly political event.
Maybe it was, but it certainly wasn't overt.
I mean, there was the Trump speech, which was very political.
I mean, I guess it just sort of struck me, not as surprising, it was totally predictable, but to see Trump, to see the likes of some of the speakers on the stage devolve into the talk of masks or devolve into the talk of Afghanistan and making it very, very, very political on that day.
And then Trump, of course, flew to Florida and called a boxing match.
So it was just a little, it was a little odd just to see this, not even a day like that.
Out in the field over time, you know, have you been hearing people talk about Joe Biden's recent withdrawal from Afghanistan?
How do you think Trump world is taking that?
The last time I was there was just right during the sort of week of all this was happening in Afghanistan.
And I was at Trump's rally in Alabama.
And I will say folks were, there wasn't, you know, oftentimes you go to these events
and there will be a uniform talking point.
That certainly wasn't the case with Afghanistan.
A lot of Trump supporters I spoke to were, you know, very open to Afghans who helped Americans to come here.
Some folks saying that, you know, it was the right decision to pull out, some saying it was the wrong.
There wasn't that solidified talking point as such, because obviously it's a very difficult topic and also Trump wanted to pull out of there.
But I do suspect that, you know, as we approach next year's midterms, That there will be a much more solidified talking point that the right, that the Trump media ecosystem will be able to solidify.
I think what will also be interesting is, you know, we're talking about Afghanistan as a defining moment in Biden's presidency right now, but will it be, you know, when it comes to the 2024 election?
That people have short memory spans and short attention spans.
So it'll be I guess we'll have to see if it really becomes that sort of major issue in 24.
But I will say for the most part, I think, from speaking to folks at these rallies, at these Trump events, that Afghanistan is an issue sort of reflective of, I think, how a lot of the country thinks about this.
It's nuanced and people don't necessarily, it's not black and white.
It might not be that useful a talking point then if it's polling, you know, kind of modeled among the base.
Yeah.
And I mean, you see that they'll try to push it and I'm sure they'll experiment with talking points.
But whether that eventually resonates, I mean, look, you got to remember, like a lot of people in the Trump base are people who have served or people who have family who have served.
You know, people might say, actually, no, this was the right call for Biden in the end.
So it's it's a tougher one.
It's much easier to talk about things like masks or, you know, imaginary threats from, you know, China hacking the election, things like that.
If you listen to Lyndell, which a lot of people do.
Yes.
You know, like a lot of people do.
And I went to his event a few weeks ago.
And I mean, Like the thing was a joke.
I don't often say that about a lot of the fringe stuff I cover because, you know, I view my job as trying to understand why folks get to this place where they believe these certain things.
But I mean, my God, that cyber symposium was a joke.
There's nothing there.
Yeah, um, but you know, he spent four days yelling about how I was literally out China at some the election.
He seems to genuinely genuinely believe it one consistent thing that we've seen in your reporting is that just the pure disdain a lot of Trump supporters and QAnon promoters have for the media and especially, you know, CNN and especially Dhoni.
I hear your name all the time on the Matrix crew show.
They'll just kind of interrupt their point.
They'll be furious and be like you hear that Dhoni?
Like, you know, like you're listening, you're listening every week, you know, you're the agent assigned to them or whatever.
But can you tell me a bit about how that journey has been so far and has any of that changed in any way?
You know, I mean, I will say for the most part, most folks I meet are great.
I mean, to me, they love the fact that I have an Irish accent.
You know, they often like talking about their long lost cousin.
You know, Dublin or Donegal.
So for the most part, folks I meet are fine.
Obviously, some folks really don't like media.
They don't like CNN, particularly.
And people will tell me, go fuck myself.
And that's totally, they're totally entitled to that.
You know, I'm the person showing up.
To sort of their political rallies with a microphone and a camera crew.
So I have no problem with people telling me get fucked.
But, you know, it's sort of, I don't, I will say as much as I think maybe some of the QAnon influencer types.
Like to think I'm always listening to their radio shows.
Unfortunately, I'm not.
I would like to get the time because I'm sure there's some great stories in there.
But it is sort of, it's interesting being made a little bit of a character.
But I will say for the most part, it's all been pretty soft stuff.
I think I ran into one of those, one of the QAnon guys, I think Groove or Matrix or whatever at the event, Lindell's event in South Dakota.
And he was pretty Yeah, they were pretty friendly and civil to me.
They asked me some questions on camera, which they're fully entitled to do, and I responded.
So, you know, I think for the most part I've been given an easy enough time.
I don't know why that is.
Maybe it's, look, maybe it's the Irish charm.
Maybe it's the Irish accent.
Maybe the Irish lilt.
That must be it.
That's why.
Although, you know, it's funny because Travis did get approached by In The Matrix, aka Jeffrey Peterson, at the QCon, and he was just so friendly.
All he wanted to do is talk to him about this Chinese family that he had a bunch of dirt on.
He was just like, listen, man, it's okay.
I know who you are.
You know who I am.
Hey, we're just hanging out, right?
You know, I think what's sort of interesting about what we do is How different people receive it, right?
Because I think maybe a lot of your audience, I think maybe a lot of Democrats who might watch CNN, people on the left, they'll watch a lot of these interviews I do and they'll say, oh, my God, Tony has made a total fool of this person.
They've come across so stupid, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I talk to a lot of the folks after I interview them, after our piece airs, I'll tell them sometimes, if I have their number, I'll say, you know, your piece is airing.
I will say, for the most part, people are happy with how I've let them say their piece.
Even if I do say, you know, well, what they've said is false here and here and here, folks on the right, who I interview, are sort of saying, well, look, this guy's from CNN, but at least he's letting me say my bit, and I'm not editing them in a way That takes them out of context.
So it is interesting, I think, that, you know, I stay in touch with quite a few of the people I interview afterward.
So it's just interesting how different audiences receive that.
But again, I think that sort of points to just the division and how polarized we are in the country where somebody could watch one of my reports and say, oh, my gosh, he destroyed that person.
Yeah, we're processing.
That's something that I think is difficult to understand if you don't study these kinds of movements or kind of collect information in them or report on them, is just that the exact same thing that you're looking at that so clearly is ridiculous to you or someone lost and the other person won, they are watching it in the exact mirror opposite.
For them, it's their win.
And there's a lot of content now that is in this category where it's a win for everyone, which is because, yeah, like you said, we're speaking to our audiences.
Yeah.
And I mean, look, I think as a journalist with such a big platform like CNN, you know, we're always thinking about how much should we platform these ideas, even if we're calling out these conspiracy theories.
You know, I was somebody very vocal on CNN for a long time.
about monitoring QAnon, but not actually touching it in a lot of our reporting for a long time.
And I don't know if that was a mistake or not, frankly, to be honest, but there's this very fine line, and we're always wrestling with it, really, is to say, are we doing the right thing here by, you know, talking about what actually a quite significant number of the population believe, whether it's anti-vaccine rhetoric or that thing, or are we amplifying it?
I mean, I don't think we'll ever have the right answer.
I try and strike the right balance.
But it's a challenge every day for that exact reason that you just said.
Some folks will watch that and say, okay, that's been called out, but somebody else might watch and say, yeah, you know what?
That sounds about right.
Are there any experiences that you had out in the field over the past year that were particularly interesting or funny to you?
There was a clip of a guy who went viral, met in Ohio, and I said, what's your name?
And he said, my name is Go Fuck Yourself.
And then he took a long drag on a cigar.
But then we ended up having a pretty OK conversation after that.
I think he admired the persistence.
I don't know if I told you this story or not before, but like I was about a year ago before the election, You know, some guy was really going hard and telling me how Biden had done all these terrible crimes.
And then, you know, we're getting into a bit of a heated back and forth.
And then he just sort of dropped out and he said, oh, are you Irish?
And this was like, my granddad's from Ireland.
Of course.
You know, there's moments of levity.
We were in Harrisburg in Pennsylvania for the moment the election got called, the day the election got called for Biden.
And it was Pennsylvania that turned out to be the state that, you know, got him over the line in the end.
That was a bit tense because that was the very sort of start of the manifestation of the Stop the Steal movement and folks were not happy to see CNN there.
But, you know, it's all about just sort of trying not to escalate.
You know, I just let folks shout into my microphone and we sort of moved out a bit.
Yeah, that's always a challenge.
But I think for most time, for most parts, you know, people are open, open to chatting.
Do you remember a report you did?
I believe it was on the March stuff.
You spoke to a man who was like the single person out there where you were making a point that there's like, these streets are empty, nothing's happening.
And this man spoke to you and his name or his online name is Mustang Medic.
Are you familiar with this guy?
I do remember him.
Yeah, I haven't caught up with him in a while.
So I actually did want to catch you up on Mustang Medic.
So what happened to Mustang Medic is after January 6th, I've been studying his YouTube for a while now, he moved permanently to Washington D.C.
to cover D.C.
And he started putting up videos like he would do, you know, he would follow motorcades or whatever, like he would kind of you know, self-appointed reporter on on Washington for
waiting for the storm and the reinstatement of Trump, which he was very disappointed, you know, like on
Independence Day, he was very disappointed many days. Unfortunately, I think he caught
COVID and his last few videos are real bad.
Like, he doesn't seem, he seems to be struggling with it.
Oh, God.
Of course, he won't kind of admit that that's what happened.
Oh, the poor guy.
Have you ever heard this story of someone who moved after January 6th?
They're like, I participated, I maybe didn't go into the building, but I participated and now I want to stay here indefinitely?
Yeah, you know, the thing about Mustang Medic is, like, you look at him, he's got a pretty polished YouTube channel.
You know, some person might look at him and say, this is a total grifter.
He's, you know, trying to cash in on this.
You know, I met him and again, it's one of those things where you're like, You seem like a really, you know, you're a smart guy.
You're charismatic and you do seem to believe a lot of this stuff.
But do you believe all of it?
And I couldn't figure that out with him.
I mean, what was striking to me was I was, as well as having to do my day job on the inauguration, I was given the overnight shift the night before the inauguration.
Which meant standing outside in the cold with the Capitol in the background doing a live Hit Every Hour, just talking about the plans and preparations for the next day.
CNN was very much in 24-hour rolling coverage because people were watching around the world.
So I would leave our hotel, which was near the Capitol, about five minutes before the Hit Every Hour with my whole crew, and we'd just stand somewhere where you could see the dome and then do the report and run back inside because it was freezing in DC but as we were doing one of these live hits I saw this guy with a cowboy hat talking into his phone on his own at the corner near the Capitol and so I said to my crew after I was like let's go over and talk to this guy and it was Mustang Medic and
You know, it was weird.
It was weird in that, you know, he seemed to genuinely believe that the inauguration would not happen.
This was, I think I spoke to him about two in the morning.
You know, I should point out that everybody seems sober.
He was streaming live, but I believe his stream that night got something like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of views because it really, he was the only person on the street and he was playing directly into this idea, the conspiracy at the time, That somehow the inauguration wouldn't happen, that martial law would be declared, that Biden would not be inaugurated.
And so he was very much the man on the ground.
And he was a good sport.
I said, well, if you, in 12 hours time, if Biden's inaugurated, will you come back and speak to me?
Or if he's not, will you come back and speak to me?
And we'll have this conversation again.
And he did.
He came back and we talked and he was disappointed and he couldn't really explain what had happened or why the inauguration went ahead.
But again, I'm very sorry.
I will reach out to him.
I'm sorry to hear that he, as you say, might have COVID.
But again, just one of these sort of fascinating characters.
I think that on the face of it, somebody might just write him off and say, this guy's completely just cashing in on this bullshit.
And maybe he is, but also it's like, well, maybe he's not.
Maybe he's very much into it.
I don't know.
I just find it.
I find it fascinating because like these are very important people in terms of if we're talking about understanding and trying to figure out as a society how we're going to get a grasp.
It's those nodes, right?
It's the people who are the super spreaders that we need to figure out a bit more about their motivations and why they do this.
For what it's worth, my impression of him over watching hours of his stuff is, I think he believes.
I think he is born again and he's very much into QAnon and Trump in an organic, relatively faithful and honest way.
Again, make him a strange man because he sacrificed his life that he had back home.
I mean, he had some legal trouble around his Mustang reparation and custom shop.
And then, you know, there was like accusations of theft and I don't know what and he fell out with a partner then.
And then he left, you know, very lonely place to be alone in DC after everyone has gone home.
And, yeah, I think it's interesting because he is, in a way, laying his life on the line, obviously, and changing everything in his life.
And I do actually remember that night, I think, before we spoke to him, the cops had spoken to him.
Because, you know, D.C.
was sort of in lockdown.
I think they were just checking to be like, who is this guy?
He was a very friendly guy.
He wasn't causing any trouble and such.
I mean, he was spreading Conspiracy theories on YouTube to hundreds of thousands of people but but I think it goes back to the point that we began with right when it comes to the churches.
Is that the community in all of this?
I mean somebody who might be at a bit of a loss in their life and all of a sudden they find this audience.
Not just a community, but an audience online.
People who listen to them, tell them they're right, say they want more content, might even start donating to them.
I do think, I don't know, I'm just obsessed with this idea of, as the main motivator and driver for so much of the stuff we now are facing, is like people just wanting to make connections That they can seem to make elsewhere in their lives and conspiracy theories and social media is a really, really good way at making these connections.
Before we let you go, Tony, do you have anything you'd like to plug?
Just for my friends who are listening to this podcast, you know, give my reports on CNN a try sometime.
You can check them out.
You can type them into, I believe it's cnn.com.
No, I got nothing to plug.
Just hopefully see you at, I'm sure I'll see you somewhere soon, somewhere along the way.
And I really appreciate you having me back.
It was a great pleasure.
And thanks again for coming on the show.
Thank you.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
You can go to patreon.com slash QAnon Anonymous.
You'll sub there and subscribe for five bucks a month to get a whole second episode every week, plus access to our entire archive of premium episodes.
There's 140 of them right now.
To those who already subscribe, you are the best.
Thank you very much.
When you do it, you help us stay advertising-free and editorially independent.
Also, we have grown by word of mouth mostly so far, and we'd love it if you could tell a friend about this if you like it.
If you don't, hey, you know what?
It doesn't cost anything to shut the fuck up.
If you can't say something nice, just shut up.
No, in fact, tell your friend that you hate it.
Because you know what?
That friend might secretly hate you.
And he might, or they might, or she might go and listen to the show.
For everything else, we have a website.
You can go to QAnonAnonymous.com for the, I think it's the four or five lost episodes that are no longer up on the feed.
You can go there to find links to a bunch of stuff, including merch.
You can buy limited edition t-shirts, etc.
Listener, until next 9/11, may the deep dish bless you and keep you.
The World Trade Center came down during the rain.
He kept us safe.
That's not safe.
That is not safe, Mark.
That is not safe.
The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn't kill Osama Bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him.
And George Bush...
By the way, George Bush had the chance also, and he didn't listen to the advice of his CIA.
9-11 would become a date to remember.
The job of a president is to protect the American people from harm.
And some presidents don't need to worry about that, and some do.
And it turns out I was one that did.
Andy Carr comes up behind me and says, second plane that hits the second tower, America's under attack.
And I'm watching the child read.
And then I see the press in the back of the room beginning to get the same message I just got.
And I can see the horror etched on the face of the news people who had just gotten the same news.
During a crisis, it's really important to set a tone and not to panic.
And so I waited for the appropriate moment to leave the classroom.
I didn't want to do anything dramatic.
I didn't want to, you know, lurch out of the chair and scare the classroom full of children.
