The Secret Service recently announced the next electoral count after the November election is scheduled for January 6, 2025, and this time the event will be classified under the same security level as the inauguration itself. The move follows a request by Washington, D.C.’s mayor and a recommendation by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. This comes as former President Donald Trump dodged a question during last week’s debate with Kamala Harris about his January 6 actions and refused to acknowledge his 2020 loss. For more, we speak with the director of the new documentary Homegrown, in which he embeds with three Trump supporters in the run-up to the 2020 election and, later, the January 6 insurrection, including members of the far-right Proud Boys. Director Michael Premo warns radicalized Trump supporters continue to threaten violence and upheaval during the current election cycle. “If this was a foreign country, the State Department would issue travel advisories for this fall. So I’m very concerned with the height of violent rhetoric that only seems to have gotten worse.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
The Secret Service recently announced the next electoral count after the November election is scheduled for January 6, 2025. This time the event will be classified under the same security level as the inauguration itself. The move follows a request by Washington, D.C.’s mayor and a recommendation by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. This comes as former President Trump dodged a question about his January 6 actions and refused to acknowledge his 2020 loss when he was asked about it by debate moderator David Muir during last week’s debate with Kamala Harris.
DAVID MUIR: You were the president. You were watching it unfold on television. It’s a very simple question as we move forward toward another election. Is there anything you regret about what you did on that day? Yes or no?
DONALD TRUMP: I had nothing to do with that, other than they asked me to make a speech. … It would have never happened if Nancy Pelosi and the mayor of Washington did their jobs. I wasn’t responsible for security. Nancy Pelosi was responsible. She didn’t do her job.
DAVID MUIR: The question was about you as president, not about former Speaker Pelosi.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as a new documentary offers a close-up look at Trump’s supporters in the run-up to the 2020 election, including members of the far-right group the Proud Boys. Homegrown follows three right-wing Trump supporters before and after the 2020 election, when they become convinced it was stolen and take to the streets. The film just had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
In a minute, we’ll speak with the director, who embedded with them, including on January 6th. But first, this clip from Homegrown that features Chris Quaglin, a New Jersey electrician, who’s one of the three people the film follows. It follows him as he divides his time between preparing to become a parent and stocking up to prepare for war. This clip is from January 5th, 2021, as he arrives at his hotel room in Washington, D.C., before the insurrection.
CHRIS QUAGLIN: Dude, I got so many [bleep] filters. This is what all this [bleep] was. I literally have [bleep] two pair of pants, [bleep] three shirts, a gas mask and body armor. That’s — and I had eight [bleep] bags. And a —
PROUD BOY 1: Wear this gas mask, if necessary. Holy [bleep]!
CHRIS QUAGLIN: And a Taser. I think it might — I think it might be legal. It’s floatable. That’s — see, all of this [bleep] is my [bleep] survival [bleep]. This is all medical. Trauma [bleep] bullet wounds, [bleep] tampons, because they’re great for knife wounds. People are like, “Oh [bleep], we’re going to have a civil war!” And I’m like, “Oh [bleep], I’ve been [bleep] planning for this for 10 [bleep] years.” Are you [bleep] kidding me?
PROUD BOY 1: “You’re out of line.”
CHRIS QUAGLIN: These things are bad [bleep], dude. And you’re not breaking through them. I don’t care if they’re from [bleep] China or not. My wife’s from China. She’s the best [bleep] lady I ever [bleep] met. So, I don’t care if they’re from China or not. You’re not breaking through those. And if — I would love to see some [bleep] antifa, like just hogtied.
AMY GOODMAN: Chris Quaglin has since been sentenced to one of the longest prison terms for participating in the insurrection.
For more, we’re joined by Michael Premo, director of Homegrown, executive producer of Storyline.
Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. This is a powerful, rare behind-the-scenes account of what happened. Talk more about Chris, this guy who ends up, what, being sentenced to 11, 12 years for assaulting a police officer, among other things.
MICHAEL PREMO: Yeah. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
So, Chris, one of the three protagonists in the film, is an electrician from Jersey who, before 2016, never considered himself political. He said before Donald Trump ran for president, he never paid attention to even local or national elections, but he was so inspired by what he heard coming from Trump that he felt sort of compelled and called to become an activist.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go back to Homegrown, to another clip of Chris Quaglin and his friends in his truck as they drive in a “Trump Train” protest.
PROUD BOY 2: There is a lot more patriots in this country than what the mainstream media tells us. You look out here, and you’ll never see a Joe Biden rally quite like this. There are millions of patriots out there. We will stand down and stand by and wait for the president’s call.
CHRIS QUAGLIN: Trump 2020, baby! Whoo!
TRUMP SUPPORTER: Four more years! Four more years!
PROUD BOY 3: We should have [bleep] tied — we should have tied antifa to the pole right here in the back.
CHRIS QUAGLIN: Yeah, dude, you tie him, like Jesus, [bleep] crucify him up there.
PROUD BOY 3: Yeah, crucify him, tie him up. But tie him up, not nail him.
CHRIS QUAGLIN: Yeah, just tape him. Duct tape, bro. Duct tape.
PROUD BOY 3: So, you could take him down and throw him out when we — yeah.
CHRIS QUAGLIN: Duct tape.
PROUD BOY 3: And with no clothes on.
CHRIS QUAGLIN: One hundred percent.
PROUD BOY 3: No, no clothes.
CHRIS QUAGLIN: You have to. But you leave the mask on.
PROUD BOY 3: Yeah, leave his mask on. You don’t want him to get a flu, you know? God forbid if he gets a cold. There’s the sheriff. Yeah, he got pulled over. Not with Trump flags, but…
CHRIS QUAGLIN: Not with Trump flags, we’re not.
PROUD BOY 3: No.
CHRIS QUAGLIN: In fact, as long as I wasn’t —
PROUD BOY 3: You could — you could shoot somebody, and you won’t get pulled over
AMY GOODMAN: He said, “You could shoot someone here, and you wouldn’t get pulled over.” That was Long Island. President Trump just spoke at the Nassau Coliseum in Long Island this week. Talk about what a Trump Train is.
MICHAEL PREMO: Yeah, Trump Train was a kind of an anomaly of the pandemic era presidential campaign, where in lieu of or in addition to some of the large-scale rallies that were happening, people would gather in a long line of cars and drive around a particular area. People may remember there were also boat trains, where people would gather and do the same thing in a long line of boats and sort of parade around a lake. And it was similar. And they happened around the country.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to another clip, and this is of Proud Boy Thad Cisneros, an activist from Texas, who you show as he teams up with a Black Lives Matter activist named Jacarri Kelley. This is a clip of them together as they drive in another Trump Train protest.
JACARRI KELLEY: Girl, what you doin’, girl? What you doin’, girl? Black lives matter, girl!
THAD CISNEROS: We are in a caravan going one direction.
JACARRI KELLEY: There’s some more.
THAD CISNEROS: And it’s Patriots Against Racism. That’s what — that’s what it is, Patriots Against Racism. So, then — can I flip this around? There we go. So, they organized another event, the BLM Utah, and you can see them. And they’re being very stunning and brave, and they’re flipping everybody off.
JACARRI KELLEY: But that works vice versa, because when I was in a caravan, the Trump supporters were flipping us off.
THAD CISNEROS: No, it’s very stupid.
JACARRI KELLEY: Just causes way more attention than there needs to be.
THAD CISNEROS: Yeah, exactly. Both Jacarri and myself are of what I think is a very good opinion, that you should allow the other side to voice their opinion without any kind of reprisal. You know, this is a demonstration of what I would consider to be unity amongst people with the same opinion.
JACARRI KELLEY: So, why not just have American flags?
THAD CISNEROS: Well, these guys are Trump supporters. They’re voicing their opinion. They —
JACARRI KELLEY: But if it’s antiracism, like, what does that have to do with Trump?
THAD CISNEROS: Oh my gosh. Trump is not synonymous with racism. Let’s not go there, Jacarri.
JACARRI KELLEY: So, is this a Trump caravan, or is this supposed to be like a patriot caravan?
THAD CISNEROS: Oh, I see what you’re saying.
JACARRI KELLEY: Right.
THAD CISNEROS: Because it is Patriots Against Racism.
JACARRI KELLEY: ’Cause it looks like —
THAD CISNEROS: OK.
JACARRI KELLEY: — it’s a Trump caravan.
THAD CISNEROS: See, at least I’m trying to understand. But can we agree that Donald Trump is not synonymous with racism, please?
JACARRI KELLEY: I see he says some racist [bleep]. I’ll say that part.
THAD CISNEROS: We got guys in New York, one of which is married to a Black woman with Black children. And —
JACARRI KELLEY: That doesn’t make you not racist if you have a Black family.
THAD CISNEROS: I cannot grasp that concept.
JACARRI KELLEY: No, you could still have that little prejudice.
THAD CISNEROS: That is complete nonsense to me, Jacarri.
JACARRI KELLEY: Oh my god!
THAD CISNEROS: That is complete nonsense.
JACARRI KELLEY: That’s like saying a Black person can’t be prejudiced against a Mexican person.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Proud Boy Thad Cisneros, who now is in jail in Texas — not related to January 6th?
MICHAEL PREMO: Yeah, he’s in jail for aggravated assault, unrelated to his political activity.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk — I mean, you’re a filmmaker of color. You embedded with these guys, most of them white, but some of them activists of color. Talk about that.
MICHAEL PREMO: I mean, I think, going into this project, I had a vision or understanding of the conservative movement as much more white than what I encountered. And why it was important to include Thad in the film, as well as a couple other sort of minor participants that you see in the background throughout the film, is because they represent this increasing participation of Black and Latino people, mostly men, who are sort of feeling inspired by the conservative movement and increasingly see themselves as foot soldiers in this movement.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, you have a scene in Portland, Oregon — this is after January 6th — where they are shooting up the area. Weapons are a big part of what they do.
MICHAEL PREMO: Yeah, weapons are absolutely critical. And I think that it’s also the draw for some people, some men of color, the sort of feeling of power, feeling powerful and being near other people who are sort of reclaiming power, so to speak.
AMY GOODMAN: Why did they accept you?
MICHAEL PREMO: I think it’s a good question. I’d love to ask them that question. I think some of these people were generally interested in talking to somebody who may not necessarily agree with everything that they stand for but was interested in talking to them. And that sort of confused and confounded people and really encouraged folks to try to talk to me in a way that I wasn’t prepared for or didn’t expect initially.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you spoken to Chris since he has been imprisoned?
MICHAEL PREMO: I’ve talked to Chris over — so, Chris was arrested in April of 2021, and he was held without bail until his sentencing, which happened earlier this year. And I talked to him a bunch of times throughout his incarceration while he was awaiting trial.
AMY GOODMAN: Does he regret what he did?
MICHAEL PREMO: No, he feels like he’s being railroaded and completely sort of, yeah, jammed up by the system, so to speak, and sees himself as a political prisoner.
AMY GOODMAN: Why did you call it Homegrown?
MICHAEL PREMO: Because I think very often when we talk about these tensions, these divisions, we, people in the media, often refer to other people coming into a place from somewhere else, and we really wanted to make clear that this is a homegrown issue, a homegrown problem, that we need to address.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you were just at the Venice Film Festival. What’s next?
MICHAEL PREMO: We have about 25 festivals coming up around the United States and Europe. And those festivals will be listed at Homegrown.film as they become live.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you expect to happen next January 6th?
MICHAEL PREMO: You know, I think I feel like that if the — if this was a foreign country, the State Department would issue travel advisories for this fall. So, I’m very concerned with the height of sort of violent rhetoric that only seems to have gotten worse since last year. I feel like perhaps on January 6th we might not see what we did in 2021, but between the election and January 6th, I think, be prepared for an escalation of violence.
AMY GOODMAN: Michael Premo, director of the new documentary Homegrown. That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.
The above article is republished from the Democracy Now! website at https://www.democracynow.org/2024/9/20/michael_premo_homegrown_documentary under a Creative Commons license.