0:00

From

0:09

New York Times opinion, I'm Lulu Garcia

0:11

Navarro, and this is first person.

0:15

Researchers have noted a curious

0:17

pattern in American history. After

0:20

overseas wars, domestic extremism

0:24

often surges. It happened

0:26

after Vietnam, Gulf War,

0:28

the rock. And today, a lot

0:30

of leaders of militia groups are

0:32

veterans who want you to know it.

0:37

It's controversial to suggest a link

0:39

between military service and Extremists,

0:42

but after January sixth, Even

0:44

the Department of Defense acknowledged that it

0:46

was an issue worth examining, calling

0:49

the riot a wake up call, Of

0:52

the sixteen oath keepers and Proud

0:55

Boys charged with sedition after the attack

0:57

on the capital, more than half

0:59

were veterans. January

1:02

six is only the most well known incident.

1:04

In the last few years, veterans have been

1:06

involved in bomb plots, mass shootings,

1:09

and the plan to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen

1:11

Whitmer. But are veterans

1:14

actually more vulnerable to radicalization?

1:17

And if so, how can it be stopped?

1:21

Chris Goldsmith is a veteran, and

1:23

he's thought a lot about how people who served

1:25

and up in extremist groups. And

1:28

what should be done about

1:28

it. Today,

1:31

Chris Goldsmith on Veterans in

1:33

the crosshairs. And

1:35

we should note Chris is married to an editor

1:38

here at The New York Times, but that's

1:40

not how we came to him. So

1:50

before we jump in, how exactly should

1:53

I describe what you do? Are you like a,

1:55

you

1:55

know, thorn in the side of the area nation,

1:58

a professional intranet looker?

2:00

What what should we say? I mean,

2:02

I I described myself as

2:04

a Nazi hunter. A Nazi hunter.

2:07

Yeah. I mean, it's literally what I do.

2:13

Literally in the Internet sense,

2:16

Chris tracks neo Nazi and

2:18

extremist groups activities online

2:21

and writes reports he shares with law

2:23

enforcement, journalists, and

2:25

researchers. In some ways,

2:27

you can draw a line between what he's

2:29

doing now and how he started his

2:31

career as a young enlisted soldier

2:34

in the early days of the war in Iraq.

2:38

So I joined the army as a forward

2:40

observer. Historically,

2:43

a forward observer, the best examples

2:45

are or like Tom Hanks wore movies. So

2:47

even like Saving Private Ryan, when they're all

2:49

walking through the jungle, they get ambushed by the

2:51

enemy. Everybody hits the ground. And

2:53

then there's a nerdy guy with the glasses and

2:55

radio screaming into a microphone and

2:57

then things start blowing up. I was the

2:59

nerdy guy with the glasses and the microphone.

3:03

But when I got to Sutter City because it was

3:05

so densely populated, I

3:07

couldn't make things go boom. So

3:10

instead, they kind of made up

3:12

a position for me. They made

3:14

me an on the ground intelligence reporter.

3:17

In that job, Chris was supposed to document

3:20

the brutal sectarian violence of

3:22

the civil war. So

3:25

at nineteen years old,

3:27

it was my job when we

3:29

found a mass grave, you

3:31

know, to take close-up photos

3:33

of the faces of lifeless

3:36

men who whose body

3:38

showed clear signs of

3:40

of torture. And

3:43

we never were able

3:45

to find out for the most part, most of

3:47

the victims that we found, we never found out

3:49

who they were. I'm

3:51

just documenting violence to

3:53

write a report that'll

3:55

never get used to solve any sort of

3:58

murder or anything. I was documenting

4:00

violence just for the sake of you

4:02

know, some some colonel being

4:05

able to say, oh, yeah, my unit went out

4:07

and did XYZ today. No

4:09

Iraqi was helped by that.

4:12

No American was more safe

4:14

because of that. We were just going through

4:16

these motions. And and

4:18

and I was being traumatized

4:22

for no good reason at all. How

4:25

did that change how you felt

4:27

about the military? I mean, did it? Yeah.

4:29

So, you know,

4:32

I I wanted to fight I

4:35

wanted to go get revenge for

4:38

the people who were killed on nine eleven,

4:40

and I found myself in

4:42

Iraq which had nothing to do with nine

4:44

eleven. I

4:47

was miserable in the army.

4:51

You

4:52

know, I didn't see any point

4:54

in the mission that we were fighting in Iraq.

4:56

So May

5:01

of two thousand seven was when

5:03

I was supposed to get out of the military. I started

5:06

saving up my leave days so that I

5:08

can put those towards the end of my contract

5:10

and actually get out early. And

5:12

then in January of two thousand

5:14

seven, during the state of the union

5:17

address president George

5:19

Bush announced the troop search.

5:21

America will change our strategy to

5:23

help the Iraqi carry out their campaign

5:25

to put down sectarian violence and

5:28

bring security to the people of

5:29

Baghdad. This

5:31

will require increasing American force

5:33

levels.

5:34

And I knew what

5:37

that meant right away. It meant that I was gonna

5:39

be stop loss. Which means it

5:41

doesn't matter what your contract says

5:43

you are going overseas with

5:45

your unit? It's essentially a

5:47

backdoor draft. I mean, you can't

5:49

actually leave your contract and you have to

5:51

stay enlisted. Yes. That's

5:54

exactly what it is. So

5:56

considering how you were feeling about

5:59

the military, and being

6:01

forced to stay in and go back

6:03

to a war which you at

6:05

this point felt was

6:09

unjust What

6:11

what happened? So

6:13

by then, I had

6:15

been experiencing severe post

6:17

traumatic stress disorder, but I didn't

6:20

know what post traumatic stress

6:22

disorder was or what it looked

6:24

like or what the symptoms were. You know,

6:26

I was

6:28

drinking extremely heavily, which

6:31

was to me was normal.

6:33

You know, everybody that I came home from Iraq

6:35

with lived in the barracks who were still on

6:37

base. All we did was

6:39

was drink extremely heavily.

6:41

But

6:44

I

6:44

was also having nightmares, and I started

6:46

having panic attacks. And

6:49

I had already gone through

6:51

the pre deployment screening, the Army had

6:53

already, you know, declared me medically

6:55

fit to deploy. And it

6:57

didn't matter that, you know, I eventually

7:01

started seeing a psychologist on

7:05

base, you know, and telling them that I

7:07

was suicidal. Because the Army

7:09

had already checked that box about me being

7:11

deployable,

7:14

I

7:14

was set to go. And eventually,

7:17

you know, it it reached a point

7:19

where on

7:21

the weekend of Memorial Day two thousand

7:24

seven, I attempted suicide.

7:26

You did? Yeah. Yep.

7:28

And

7:33

the army, my unit, accused

7:36

me of malignant of of

7:38

making up my symptoms, So

7:42

three months after my my suicide

7:44

attempt, I was I

7:46

was kicked out of the army with a general discharge.

7:49

Which cost me my GI bill benefits.

7:53

And, you know,

7:55

part of the dream was to go to college.

7:57

And they

7:59

took that away from me? So

8:02

you're in your early twenties. You

8:05

have been discharged from the military.

8:07

Mhmm. What did

8:10

the future look like

8:12

for you at that point? Where did you end

8:14

up So

8:17

I ended up going from

8:19

sergeant Goldsmith, that was my identity

8:23

to Chris, living

8:25

in his childhood bedroom, completely

8:29

unemployable suffering

8:32

severe post traumatic stress disorder.

8:34

And I'm spending a lot of

8:36

time alone on YouTube

8:40

falling down, you know, conspiracy theory

8:42

rabbit holes. When

8:44

you say conspiracy theory rabbit

8:46

holes, describe to me what you

8:48

were looking into? Yeah.

8:51

So I was,

8:54

you know, trying to

8:57

figure out, like, I had

8:59

felt like I had been lied to about

9:01

I mean, well, you know, we had all been lied

9:03

to about the pretense of of

9:05

the war in Iraq. And so I

9:07

was I was like trying to

9:09

understand how it was that America

9:11

was tricked into invading Iraq

9:14

after nine eleven. And with,

9:18

you know, anti war

9:20

videos came conspiracy

9:23

theories about things like you know,

9:25

invading Iraq for oil, which,

9:27

you know, translated to invading

9:29

Iraq for the

9:29

bankers. You know, Iraq

9:32

shows the three stages leak economic

9:34

hitmen fail there. The Jackals fail

9:36

there. And as a final measure,

9:39

the military goes out. It

9:41

is important to understand that one of the most

9:43

lucrative things that can happen for the

9:45

bankers is war. For it

9:47

forces? You know, there were nine eleven

9:49

truth or videos Solded like a

9:50

pancake. This is high school

9:53

physics. What exactly happened on

9:55

nine eleven? The official accounts

9:57

of nine eleven are

9:59

false. With the build. And

10:02

once you start

10:04

watching those types of videos on

10:06

YouTube, the algorithm just

10:08

pumps more of that

10:10

similar content into

10:12

your feed. So I

10:14

was, you know, I was watching Info

10:16

Wars and and Alex Jones

10:18

well before he

10:19

was, you know, known for what he is

10:21

today. In this film, you

10:23

will learn how our world is

10:25

truly

10:25

governed. You will see how highly

10:28

secretive round table groups interlock

10:30

to form a global intelligence network.

10:32

I started to, like, see

10:35

a pattern started

10:37

to feel like my

10:40

entire version of reality was

10:42

shaped by this

10:43

mysterious, like, nameless global

10:46

cabal. It's

10:47

time to wake up. People

10:49

in power go out of their way to make sure

10:51

you are perpetually misled and

10:54

manipulated. Would

10:56

you describe the sentiment as anti government?

10:58

Yeah. Yeah.

11:01

I was it

11:03

was extremely anti government. I

11:05

mean, I I identified as, you

11:07

know, first as a Republican and

11:09

then as a libertarian. And

11:13

shortly before my suicide

11:15

attempt is when the the first Republican

11:18

primary debate was. And that was the first time

11:20

I saw Ron Paul than a

11:22

congressman running for

11:24

office. The former congressman from Texas

11:26

who's often called the godfather of the tea

11:28

party who's a vocal critic of the

11:30

federal government. Yes.

11:32

And he, in the

11:35

army, you see an incredible

11:37

amount of waste of just

11:39

government waste of

11:41

things that don't make

11:43

any sense, but you do them just

11:45

because you have to, you know,

11:47

go through the motions. And

11:50

Ron Paul seemed to be to me

11:52

who, at the time, identified as

11:54

a Republican, the only person

11:56

out of a, you know, pretty broad

11:59

spectrum of candidates who is

12:01

speaking truth to

12:02

power. I didn't

12:03

endorse the war. I think the war is wrong. I think

12:05

we went in there for wrong reasons. There

12:07

were no weapons of mass destruction.

12:09

There were no al Qaeda

12:11

there.

12:12

And Ron Paul became

12:14

like my personal

12:17

hero as like a truth teller.

12:19

Civilization advances

12:22

when you have less power in government.

12:24

A wonderful part about a free

12:26

society, you eliminate

12:29

entirely victims. There are

12:31

no victims, ideas spread,

12:33

they can't stop him. An

12:35

idea whose time has come

12:37

cannot be stopped by any army or

12:39

any government.

12:44

Like his hip not him as a

12:46

person, but like him as a movement

12:48

became briefly,

12:50

like, my reason for living.

12:52

I was still severely depressed.

12:55

I was still unemployable. I was

12:57

still suffering all of the worst

12:59

symptoms of PTSD. And

13:01

I was not thinking about the future.

13:04

But I still saw

13:06

myself as a patriot, so

13:08

I was going around in the middle of the night

13:11

spray painting Ron Paul Revolution

13:14

in my hometown. And

13:17

when Ron Paul lost. You

13:20

know, that was the first

13:22

round of belief

13:24

about a a stolen election that I had

13:26

been exposed

13:27

to. He didn't get the nomination. He

13:29

didn't lose.

13:30

Yeah. And,

13:32

you know, I I

13:35

started to feel like the

13:37

system is rigged. Like

13:39

there was, again,

13:41

a mysterious cabal that, like, I didn't

13:43

have a a name for or know who

13:45

was behind it, but I felt like there were

13:47

people manipulating me and every other

13:50

American like me.

13:51

Did you think you

13:53

were at risk of being radicalized? I

13:55

mean, did you understand it in those terms

13:58

or worry about it at all?

14:00

Not at the time. I mean, the only

14:02

radical, like, radicalization

14:05

extremism that we ever talked about at at

14:07

that time had to do with, you

14:09

know, Islam. The Republican

14:12

party was was obsessed with,

14:14

you know, trying to get Obama to

14:16

say the phrase radical Islam.

14:18

Right? There was no

14:20

discussion that I was paying attention to about

14:22

domestic extremism at the

14:24

time. And, you

14:25

know, when I saw people that

14:27

were like minded in

14:30

terms of libertarian and the pro ron Paul

14:32

thing, like starting to form militias and

14:34

arm themselves and prepare,

14:36

you know, for a

14:38

fight against the government, you know,

14:40

that that part never

14:42

appealed to me but

14:46

it seemed rational in a way

14:48

to me. It's

14:51

interesting because, you

14:53

know, Ron Paul

14:55

has this very particular place

14:59

in the ecosystem of

15:01

the right know, I'm thinking

15:03

about Stuart

15:05

Rhodes, who is also a veteran

15:07

who campaigned for Ron Paul in two

15:09

thousand and eight, and he went on to found

15:11

the oath

15:11

keepers, which is the far right

15:14

anti government paramilitary group,

15:16

you

15:19

we're clearly in a world of

15:21

beliefs that can lead to some

15:23

pretty extreme places.

15:27

What

15:27

got you thinking about the future

15:29

again? And out of that head

15:31

space?

15:34

About five years of therapy

15:36

with VA. They really

15:38

put a lot of work into pulling

15:41

me back and pulling me out of

15:44

of this, like, terrible

15:46

self destructive place. And

15:49

about five years after I got kicked out,

15:51

I finally found out that I was eligible

15:53

for what was called time vocational

15:55

rehabilitation, which

15:58

is a program to help disabled

16:00

veterans become employable

16:03

in. So I started

16:05

in school. And the first semester

16:07

that I was at my

16:09

community college in Long Island, every

16:13

step of it was difficult for me.

16:15

But I eventually got enrolled

16:17

in classes and

16:19

started with, like, remedial courses And,

16:24

you know, taking the most basic

16:26

courses like economics 101 and

16:28

102 challenged

16:30

my libertarian beliefs that had a

16:32

lot to do with, you know, monetary policy

16:34

and economics that I did

16:36

not understand at all. And I

16:38

didn't understand that I didn't understand

16:40

them. I was

16:44

being taught to think critically. I

16:46

was being taught to

16:48

analyze evidence and

16:50

arguments and to

16:53

actually perform real research,

16:55

not just you know, look things up on

16:57

YouTube and have an algorithm, push you down

16:59

whatever decision you've already made.

17:03

I I started

17:06

to learn to think, period.

17:09

And I started getting

17:11

interested in in policy making and I

17:13

found a mentor at the school who who

17:15

taught me how

17:15

to, you

17:16

know, work with Congress to get legislation

17:19

passed, to start actually fixing

17:21

problems.

17:22

So I went from completely

17:24

nihilistic to

17:26

to really believing

17:29

that still had a chance

17:31

to make a difference and

17:33

serve my country in a

17:35

meaningful way.

17:37

That

17:37

became your purpose then from being

17:39

anti government to trying to change the

17:41

government. Exactly.

17:42

So I I

17:46

started advocating on things

17:49

like fixing the

17:51

the way that people get discharged

17:53

from the military, you

17:56

know, most specifically, like vets with

17:58

post traumatic stress disorder, you

18:00

know, people like me who served

18:02

and got chewed up and

18:05

spit Not getting the help that

18:07

they needed and

18:09

deserved while in the

18:11

military. And over

18:13

the next few years. I was I was

18:15

averaging getting a bill pass

18:17

every single year as as part of

18:19

National Defense Authorization Act to help veterans

18:21

with bad paper discharge incremental

18:23

changes, but

18:24

it was the first time that

18:26

I started to really see

18:29

myself as able to make up positive change

18:31

in a way that would affect more

18:34

Americans in a positive way than

18:36

anything I ever did in service.

18:43

Eventually, that work landed

18:45

Chris a job Vietnam Veterans of

18:47

America, lobbying Congress

18:49

on healthcare and

18:51

educational policy. Until

18:53

one day, he found himself back

18:55

in the rabbit holes of the Internet.

18:59

So I I started to make this

19:01

connection about veterans and extremism

19:04

in twenty seventeen. I

19:06

found a fake version

19:08

of my employer's Facebook page.

19:10

So Vietnam Veterans America was a fake

19:13

version that had a

19:15

half a million followers, which

19:17

was far larger than

19:19

our audience. The page was only six months

19:21

old. It was backed up by a host of

19:22

websites. And when

19:25

I first saw it, I thought

19:27

it was a rogue member just out there doing

19:29

a good

19:29

thing. And it wasn't until I

19:32

I saw this manipulated video

19:34

that it clicked and I understood what was going

19:36

on. This manipulated video

19:39

showed it was a fifty eight

19:41

second clip from rural Massachusetts,

19:43

like a a local news, it was

19:45

a true story of a

19:47

black vietnam vets monument

19:50

being defaced. But when I saw

19:52

it on Facebook, it was

19:54

being presented as if it were a live

19:56

video. So it looked like a

19:58

breaking important story.

20:00

And, you know, this

20:03

was manipulative in so

20:06

many ways

20:08

that all of a sudden I understood, like,

20:11

there's there's another purpose

20:13

here. What did you understand

20:14

that bigger purpose to be?

20:17

At that point. So I looked up the websites,

20:19

found out that they were based in Russia.

20:23

It was to it was

20:25

to use our reputation as

20:28

an organization and as

20:30

veterans to divide

20:34

people to cause

20:37

conflict and to

20:40

make make my constituency and

20:42

this organization feel as if they're

20:44

under attack constantly. You

20:48

know, most most of America

20:51

was was talking about, you

20:53

know, the Russia investigation and

20:55

Trump, and then it eventually mullar

20:58

investigation. So

21:00

we as Americans were acutely aware

21:02

of things like how foreign

21:05

powers, like Russian intelligence services

21:07

had manipulated Americans on

21:09

social media to radicalize them

21:11

to shift their belief systems, their

21:13

value systems, to to get them to

21:15

fight one another. And, you know,

21:17

for these Vietnam vets who had been treated so

21:20

poorly, you know, many of them described

21:22

to me being spit on that they would

21:24

throw out their uniforms at the airport when

21:26

they came home from war. wouldn't

21:28

be identified as as veterans.

21:33

Them seeing these repeated

21:35

manipulated videos and

21:37

and articles goals about real stories about

21:39

Vietnam vets monuments being

21:41

defaced. They weren't recognizing

21:43

it as propaganda, and they were

21:45

feeling deeply hurt. Who were

21:47

feeling as if were constantly under attack by Americans

21:50

who were targeting them because of

21:52

their identity. So

21:54

in flamed very real tensions that already

21:57

existed. What did you come to understand about

21:59

why these vets were being targeted?

22:02

So working in Vietnam, Veterans America,

22:04

I came to understand, you know,

22:06

I I started to to

22:09

learn about veterans and that

22:11

we are more

22:13

likely to own

22:16

businesses to do veteran school

22:18

than our peers. To not just

22:20

graduate with higher

22:22

GPA, but actually finish school once

22:24

we start it. We're more likely

22:26

to be community leaders. And that doesn't just mean

22:28

getting elected. It means being a soccer coach

22:30

or, you know, a girl scout

22:33

troop leader.

22:35

I

22:36

recognize that we were high

22:39

value targets and that we were

22:41

economically efficient targets for for

22:43

these foreign disinformation campaigns because

22:47

we, veterans, when

22:49

we believe something, when we

22:52

when

22:52

our voting behavior has changed, when our belief

22:54

system has changed, when our value system has

22:57

changed, we're more likely to take

22:59

people along with us

23:01

Let me understand what you're saying here. You're

23:03

saying that because vets

23:07

inspire respect, they

23:09

have a privileged place in our

23:12

society. They're

23:14

more likely to shift

23:17

the opinion of those around them than

23:21

other groups. And that's why

23:24

actors like the Russians

23:26

were really trying to coop

23:28

them --

23:28

Correct. -- to move them in

23:31

in a direction that would be divisive.

23:33

Yep. Chris

23:36

ended up writing a two hundred page

23:38

report about all the different ways veterans

23:40

were being targeted online.

23:43

Mostly focused on foreign threats,

23:45

then the pandemic hit, and he was laid

23:47

off from his job at Vietnam veterans

23:50

of

23:50

America. And just as he found himself with

23:52

a lot more time on his hands, he

23:54

got a call.

23:55

A friend of mine

23:58

who I had served in the army with who

24:00

I had, you know, stayed close with,

24:03

had called me up kind of

24:05

out of the blue and says, hey, Goldie, I

24:07

joined this neo Nazi group called

24:09

Patriot Front and I want you to help me take them

24:11

down. Now, I had

24:13

never heard of Patriot Front

24:15

before. You know, I had known

24:17

about militias from you

24:19

know, the Ron Paul days and start at the oath keepers. You

24:21

know, they were like a group that I kinda

24:24

came out of the same circle that

24:26

I

24:26

did. So I knew about them.

24:28

But this this organization's

24:31

different.

24:31

You know, he started telling me he's like, yeah,

24:33

man, these are actual neo Nazis. He's

24:35

like, they actually love Hitler. And

24:39

he started describing

24:41

them as, you know, it's it's a youth

24:43

focused organization that is is

24:46

training to become ever more militant.

24:50

You know, he

24:53

he basically help me

24:55

understand on that phone call

24:57

that they were deliberately

25:00

recruiting, radicalized, and

25:03

and training young American

25:05

men to become an insurgency,

25:08

a racist, anti

25:10

Semitic, anti LGBT,

25:13

insurgency.

25:37

I'm Kevin Russe, and

25:39

I'm Casey Newton. We're technology reporters

25:41

and the hosts of Hard Fork, a

25:43

new show from the New York

25:45

times. A hard fork is a programming term for when

25:47

you're building something that gets really screwed up.

25:49

So you take the entire thing, break

25:51

it, and start over. And

25:53

that's a little bit what it feels like right now in the tech

25:55

industry. Like, these companies that you and I have

25:57

been writing about for the past decade, they're all

26:00

kind of struggling to stay

26:01

relevant? Yeah. I I mean, a lot of the

26:04

energy and money in Silicon Valley is

26:06

shifting to totally new ideas. Crypto,

26:08

the

26:08

Metiverse, AI, feels

26:11

like a real turning point. And all this is

26:13

happening so fast. Some of

26:15

it's so strange. I just feel like

26:17

I'm texting you constantly,

26:18

like, what is this story? Explain

26:20

this me. And so we're gonna talk about these stories.

26:22

We're gonna bring in other journalists,

26:25

newsmakers. Whoever else is involved in building this

26:27

future to explain to us

26:29

what's changing and why it all matters.

26:31

Hard fork from The New York Times.

26:34

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

26:38

So you get a

26:41

call from a friend of yours who's

26:43

gotten involved with a group called the

26:45

Patriot Front. friend tells you he's

26:47

infiltrated the group. What does that

26:49

mean exactly?

26:53

So they were they were looking for

26:56

radicalized young white men,

26:58

so he was able to infiltrate

27:00

by pretending to be one of them

27:02

because he you know, though they

27:04

didn't know who he was

27:06

personally, they were looking

27:08

for his type, you know,

27:10

someone who had been in the military.

27:13

They saw him as a

27:15

veteran. Yes. So white supremacist groups

27:17

and the Russians or Fortune five

27:19

hundred companies all target veterans for

27:21

the same Because we

27:23

are going to bring more value

27:25

to the organization. And in the

27:27

case of the white supremacists, it's

27:29

it's not just about you

27:31

know, combat training. It's about

27:33

understanding leadership. So when they

27:35

recruit veterans, they're recruiting a

27:37

level of professionalism that

27:39

they can't get anywhere else.

27:41

And what was your role

27:43

in this scheme? My

27:46

role was to expose them

27:49

to do the documentation, you

27:51

know, to write analyses,

27:55

And for months,

27:58

I just, you know, was logging

28:00

on to their Extremists

28:03

Front systems. And

28:05

just copying everything that

28:07

I could and putting it into

28:09

organized folders and labeling

28:12

the evidence said that I could pass it on to a

28:14

reporter and was hoping

28:15

that, you know, a law enforcement agency

28:17

might do something

28:19

with it. So you first

28:21

start paying attention to these groups in twenty

28:24

twenty. A lot of these groups use

28:26

the idea of patriotism, defending

28:29

the constitution, as rallying

28:32

cries. How were you seeing those ideas

28:34

discussed in relation to

28:36

the election? So I

28:38

was I was infiltrating multiple groups

28:41

at the same time. So

28:43

both these neo Nazi groups

28:45

like Patriot Front and militia groups like the

28:47

three percent security force. And

28:51

the stolen election lie

28:53

before the election or stop the steel

28:56

phrase became

28:59

popular. It was it was something that

29:01

Roger Stone had had used years

29:03

ago. And then it became popular with one of his disciples, Jack

29:06

D'Sobeic, a former Navy officer who's,

29:08

you know, become a far right

29:10

agitator and propagandist the

29:13

idea that the system was

29:14

rigged, you know,

29:16

in in a way that I used to feel like

29:19

the system was rigged.

29:20

Those narratives were spinning

29:23

up before Trump ever started talking

29:25

about a stolen election? So

29:28

Those narratives are

29:30

spinning up. Obviously, they

29:33

get supercharged when Trump does

29:35

start to talk about a stolen

29:36

election. Mhmm. And then we get to January

29:39

sixth twenty twenty

29:41

one. And it doesn't take

29:43

long for it to start to merge that

29:45

there were veterans there that day playing some pretty

29:48

central roles in the

29:50

insurrection. Were

29:52

you surprised?

29:54

It was it was exactly

29:56

what I was afraid of.

30:00

It was What happened on January sixth

30:02

and the role of veterans being involved

30:04

is precisely what I thought was gonna

30:06

happen because when

30:08

I was infiltrating the three percent security force, they were

30:11

talking about it. You know, that's a

30:13

militia not

30:16

glucifully veterans, but geared towards

30:18

recruiting veterans and run

30:20

by veterans. And they were talking

30:22

about, you know, storming

30:25

the capital. Chris, you're

30:27

saying it wasn't a surprise to you because you've been

30:29

infiltrating these groups. For

30:32

me, though, I

30:34

also didn't find it surprising because

30:37

much of the general

30:39

population feels that there

30:41

might be an overlap between

30:43

military circles and right wing

30:45

causes. What do you make of that link

30:48

in connection?

30:49

So I have not seen convincing

30:52

evidence that veterans are more

30:54

likely to be radicalized. More

30:58

likely to be

31:01

susceptible to disinformation campaigns.

31:03

And and that may be the case, but I've not

31:05

seen evidence of it.

31:07

Like, I I haven't seen a peer reviewed

31:09

study of it. So you're

31:11

saying that vets are not more susceptible

31:13

to the allure of extremist

31:15

ideology?

31:15

I I don't think so. No.

31:19

You know, I I think that the same

31:21

thing that that, like, made me

31:23

vulnerable to conspiracy theories

31:25

and you know, starting to

31:27

flirt with extremist ideology.

31:29

It wasn't my

31:32

military experience It

31:34

was my instability. It

31:36

was my economic

31:39

instability. My mental instability.

31:43

You know, it's it's not just PTSD

31:45

from war that makes people susceptible

31:47

to these things. Like,

31:49

if you're down, if

31:52

you're desperate, you're desperate for

31:54

community. If an extremist

31:56

organization finds you before

31:58

a legit organization or

32:00

an organization that's out there for good,

32:02

they can use your economic, your

32:05

social, your mental

32:08

instability as the hook

32:10

to start reeling you in. So

32:13

if there's really no solid data that backs

32:15

up the idea that veterans are more

32:17

likely to join extremist groups than anyone in

32:19

the general

32:20

population, that they're not

32:22

more susceptible. Why worry about

32:25

veterans in particular?

32:28

Yeah.

32:28

So what we learned from the

32:32

seemingly very high percentage of veterans

32:34

who were arrested in the first weeks

32:36

following the riot. On

32:38

January sixth is that

32:40

they the veterans

32:42

were central in command control

32:44

and execution. They were

32:47

the leaders. Correct. And

32:49

that that is why these extremist

32:51

organizations recruit them because the

32:53

leaders are are key. So

32:55

veterans are important because

32:57

when they do something people follow

32:59

them. I

33:01

wanna ask you about

33:04

how your approach

33:06

to understanding domestic

33:08

extremism has evolved those

33:11

initial forays into the world of the patriot front. You've

33:13

made tracking extremists into a

33:15

career of business. You spend

33:17

a lot of time trying to get

33:20

information about the people in these groups.

33:22

You call yourself a Nazi

33:24

hunter. What are you

33:27

hoping your work achieves what

33:29

is its

33:31

goal? So

33:33

every

33:34

time that that a story

33:36

about my work whether infiltrating in the neo Nazi organization

33:38

or releasing information

33:41

about an unlawful militia planning

33:43

and assault on the capital.

33:47

I have had veterans reach out to me

33:49

and basically say, like, how can I

33:52

help? And, you know, for the longest time,

33:54

I I like had to just kinda

33:56

ignore those those calls. I'm

33:58

not gonna tell people to do what I do

34:00

and and join a neo Nazi organization

34:02

to sabotage them from within.

34:05

Like, that that is I recognize that that's

34:07

crazy. But I

34:09

have since figured

34:12

out that I can

34:14

give those veterans who

34:16

wanna do the same service

34:18

to protect our country from threats

34:20

within, give them an opportunity to do

34:22

it. That's why I created

34:25

my nonprofit. I I train

34:27

veterans to study extremist movements,

34:29

to track individual Extremists

34:31

to gather evidence and to

34:34

treat that evidence in a way that it could be

34:36

used to prosecute someone or

34:38

to support

34:40

a case against an extremist if they've done harm to

34:42

someone. I'm still

34:45

waiting for the FBI to

34:47

ever arrest anyone that I've, you

34:50

know, providing information on, but I'm hoping that someday

34:52

law enforcement starts prosecuting these folks

34:54

before they reach the point of actually committing

34:58

violence. I'm I'm not getting

35:00

vets to, you know, strap on body

35:02

armor and carry weapons and go

35:04

face these extremists in the streets.

35:07

I believe that, you know, we

35:09

can gather evidence and hold them accountable

35:11

in court. Or if

35:14

not, at least expose them to the public

35:16

so that their local communities understand that got neo Nazi,

35:18

you know, participating in their local

35:22

economy. You've

35:23

spent a lot of time in your career

35:26

advocating on the behalf of veterans. Do you think

35:28

there has been

35:30

a deep reputational damage

35:32

to the image of veterans in

35:34

the United States because of their

35:37

association with extremist groups. I mean, what

35:39

do you make of the fact that many of these groups see veterans as on

35:41

their side? Yeah, I do.

35:42

I think that veterans have taken

35:46

a hit in our reputation among Americans.

35:48

And frankly, it's deserved

35:50

for what a bunch of veterans

35:52

have done. It

35:56

is it's my opinion

35:57

that veterans have

36:00

to work to earn the respect that we've

36:03

been given. know, Vietnam vets did a lot

36:05

of good for my generation

36:08

in helping Americans understand

36:10

the sacrifices that we make

36:12

even if we'd lose a war. But

36:15

not everyone who

36:18

has served

36:20

our country is a good, decent, honorable person. Some

36:23

are like Joe Biggs,

36:25

a veteran who represented

36:28

the Proud Boys as he organized a

36:30

violent insurrection in Jessica Watkins and

36:33

Stuart Rhodes of the North

36:35

Keepers and Veterans who attempted

36:37

to destroy the same constitution

36:40

that they swore enough to. And

36:42

it's okay for

36:45

Americans to recognize that. Americans

36:47

don't have to worship

36:50

veterans. It hasn't always been part of

36:52

our social

36:54

fabric and

36:56

I I think that the work that I'm

36:58

doing

36:59

will hopefully

36:59

repair some of this this damaged

37:02

reputation. Some

37:04

of us

37:06

really

37:07

truly do care about America's promise and

37:09

America's diversity in

37:12

recognizing that equality

37:14

and inclusion may not

37:17

have always been part of

37:19

America, but they they

37:22

need

37:23

to be. And willing to fight

37:26

for it.

37:40

First person is a production of New York Times opinion.

37:43

This episode was produced by

37:45

Olivia Nat, with help from

37:48

Arthur. It was edited

37:50

by Stephanie Joyce and Cory

37:52

Pittkin. Mixing by

37:54

Carol Saburo, Original

37:56

music by Isaac Jones, Pat

37:58

Macusker, and Carol Saburo.

38:00

Fact checking by Mary Marchlocker,

38:03

and Kate Sinclair. The rest of the

38:05

first person team includes Annabel

38:08

Bacon, Jillian Wineburger, Wyatt

38:10

Warren and Sophia Alvarez

38:12

Boyd. Special thanks do Christina

38:14

Samuelski, Shannon Buster, Alison

38:16

Benedict, Annie Rose Strausser,

38:19

and Katie Kingsbury.