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The Journalist and the Firefighter · Question Everything

0:00
Speaker 1: Before the last presidential election in 2020, a reporter wrote
0:03
Speaker 1: a story that predicted the future. I remember reading it.
0:07
Speaker 1: It was one of those pieces of journalism I'll never forget.
0:09
Speaker 1: Though it's hard to put myself back into that moment
0:11
Speaker 1: in time, into that headspace, when the frightening things the
0:14
Speaker 1: reporter was saying were about to happen hadn't happened yet.
0:18
Speaker 1: And I still had to wonder, is this guy right?
0:21
Speaker 1: Will the things his story is predicting become true?
0:25
Speaker 2: But he was. And they did. The reporter's name was
0:30
Speaker 2: Barton Gelman.
0:31
Speaker 1: In his story for The Atlantic, he laid out ahead
0:34
Speaker 1: of time the specific tactics then-President Donald Trump and his
0:37
Speaker 1: allies would use to attempt to stay in power, regardless
0:40
Speaker 1: of the outcome of the election. The story was called
0:42
Speaker 1: The Election That Could Break America. Barton Gelman predicted that
0:46
Speaker 1: Trump would never concede defeat. He identified January 6, 2021
0:51
Speaker 1: specifically as a date that could see chaos. He reported
0:55
Speaker 1: ahead of time that there would likely be immense pressure
0:57
Speaker 1: on Vice President Mike Pence to not certify the electoral vote.
1:02
Speaker 2: Barton wrote all.
1:03
Speaker 1: This in September 2020, a full month and a half
1:06
Speaker 1: before Election Day, before Trump stepped out on that election
1:10
Speaker 1: night at the White House and delivered a speech insisting
1:14
Speaker 1: the election had been stolen from him.
1:16
Speaker 3: All of us here today do not want to see
1:18
Speaker 3: our election victory stolen.
1:21
Speaker 2: We will stop the steal.
1:26
Speaker 1: Before the insurrection on January 6th. Before Trump supporters gathered
1:33
Speaker 1: around a noose on the Capitol lawn that day and shouted,
1:37
Speaker 1: hang Mike Pence. I didn't know Barton Gilman's name when
1:43
Speaker 1: I read this piece, but I realized when I looked
1:45
Speaker 1: him up that I definitely knew his work. He was
1:48
Speaker 1: the reporter who brought us the huge Edward Snowden leak.
1:51
Speaker 1: via the Washington Post, which revealed for the first time
1:54
Speaker 1: the National Security Agency's vast surveillance of American citizens. For sure,
1:58
Speaker 1: one of the biggest stories of the last few decades.
2:01
Speaker 1: Barton's won three Pulitzer Prizes. Over 30 years of reporting,
2:05
Speaker 1: he's covered the Pentagon and 9-11 and the War on Terror.
2:08
Speaker 1: He traveled with weapon hunters in Iraq and documented, at
2:12
Speaker 1: a time when many others were not, that they weren't
2:14
Speaker 1: finding weapons of mass destruction. He's the kind of journalist
2:18
Speaker 1: who moderates panels with former secretaries of Homeland Security. On
2:21
Speaker 1: his website, he lists five different methods for sending him
2:24
Speaker 1: confidential material securely. When his Atlantic story came out, the
2:29
Speaker 1: chatter among journalism types online was all, Bart Gellman wrote
2:32
Speaker 1: a piece. Ooh, Bart Gellman wrote a piece. Like he
2:34
Speaker 1: was a high priest of journalism, sending down a proclamation
2:38
Speaker 1: about the state of our country. So I was startled
2:41
Speaker 1: and intrigued when I read something new Bart Gellman wrote
2:44
Speaker 1: at the beginning of this year. It was a tweet
2:47
Speaker 1: in which he announced that after more than three decades,
2:51
Speaker 1: he was quitting journalism. It was time, Barton wrote, to
2:56
Speaker 1: get off the sidelines and join the fight for democracy. Apparently,
3:01
Speaker 1: Barton Gelman felt he couldn't do enough as a journalist
3:04
Speaker 1: to help our country, to make enough of a difference.
3:08
Speaker 1: This feeling that journalism is too passive, that it's failing
3:12
Speaker 1: to meet the moment, I've been wrestling with that myself.
3:15
Speaker 1: but I don't want to quit the profession that I love. Instead,
3:18
Speaker 1: this grappling became a big part of the impetus for
3:21
Speaker 1: this show, where I'm questioning the ways we do journalism
3:23
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out how can it change, if
3:26
Speaker 1: it can change, to be more impactful. Some of this
3:30
Speaker 1: came out a few mint juleps deep in our last episode,
3:32
Speaker 1: Drinks for Five. Astead Herndon at the New York Times
3:35
Speaker 1: and my mentor from This American Life, Ira Glass, were
3:38
Speaker 1: talking about their feeling that the job of a journalist
3:41
Speaker 1: should be to document the world.
3:43
Speaker 2: Not necessarily to try to influence it.
3:45
Speaker 1: And I said, you talking about like journalism's role being
3:48
Speaker 1: to reflect reality or just kind of document that's the
3:50
Speaker 1: best we can do.
3:51
Speaker 2: I believe that for a long time.
3:53
Speaker 1: And I've been in this zone of just feeling like
3:56
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like enough. And that's kind of the
3:59
Speaker 1: spirit of this. It's just like, there's something like that
4:01
Speaker 1: felt like enough for so long. And like, yeah, that
4:04
Speaker 1: that was our role and our purpose. And, and there's
4:07
Speaker 1: something about it that I just hit a point where like,
4:10
Speaker 1: it feels insufficient.
4:11
Speaker 3: Yeah.
4:15
Speaker 1: Even though this sentiment has been growing in me for
4:17
Speaker 1: years now, I still feel stuck, or at least much
4:19
Speaker 1: more comfortable, in the observe and document approach I'm used to.
4:23
Speaker 1: It's a conflict for me. When I read Barton Gelman's tweet,
4:27
Speaker 1: I imagined that he felt similar to me, but from
4:30
Speaker 1: afar at least it appeared that he'd chosen a different
4:32
Speaker 1: route to deal with his frustrations. Apparently he decided that
4:36
Speaker 1: continuing to do journalism wasn't the way, that in order
4:38
Speaker 1: to have the impact he wanted, he was better off
4:41
Speaker 1: freeing himself from the field entirely, rather than trying to
4:44
Speaker 1: change it. I look up to Barton, aspire to do
4:47
Speaker 1: work like him. So I needed to know, what led
4:51
Speaker 1: Barton Gelman to quit journalism? What's he doing now? And
4:55
Speaker 1: what does that say about the limits of the work
4:57
Speaker 1: we do? He told me something that I did not expect.
5:04
Speaker 1: From KCRW and Placement Theory, I'm Brian Reed. This is
5:08
Speaker 1: Question Everything.
5:10
Speaker 2: Stick around.
5:19
Speaker 1: When Barton Gelman quit journalism in January, he went to
5:22
Speaker 1: work in an organization whose research he'd cited in his
5:25
Speaker 1: articles over the years, the Brennan Center for Justice. It's
5:28
Speaker 1: a nonpartisan nonprofit whose mission is, quote, to reform, revitalize,
5:33
Speaker 1: and when necessary, defend our country's systems of democracy and justice.
5:38
Speaker 1: They filed briefs in support of the Voting Rights Act
5:40
Speaker 1: when it's been challenged. They advocate for reforms on the
5:43
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, like term limits for justices. They've represented Guantanamo detainees.
5:48
Speaker 1: That's where I went to meet Barton to find out
5:50
Speaker 1: how he came to make this remarkable career move at
5:53
Speaker 1: the Brennan Center offices in New York.
5:55
Speaker 3: It's a think tank. It's kind of a policy advocacy shop.
5:59
Speaker 3: They do litigation and they do very good. Right.
6:04
Speaker 2: It's a we now, right? You work here now.
6:06
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, I'm still getting used to that. Yeah.
6:10
Speaker 1: To the we, to the saying like we do litigation
6:12
Speaker 1: and we advocate for policy. That still feels a little
6:15
Speaker 1: unnatural for you to say.
6:18
Speaker 3: I've always been trained to kind of keep myself out
6:21
Speaker 3: of the story as a journalist, to be standing back
6:25
Speaker 3: and reporting on what other people do. So I'm still
6:29
Speaker 3: not as used to the first person.
6:31
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for doing this. I know you're very busy.
6:34
Speaker 1: Just seeing your tweet, just being an admirer of your work,
6:37
Speaker 1: I have kind of watched what you've done in the
6:39
Speaker 1: last year. And it strikes me as extraordinary, someone with
6:42
Speaker 1: your track record and just your experience as a journalist–
6:45
Speaker 1: to feel that you had to leave the field to
6:47
Speaker 1: really have the impact that you want to have right now.
6:50
Speaker 1: Can you point to when this feeling that you wanted
6:52
Speaker 1: to leave or that you had to leave in order
6:57
Speaker 1: to take the action that you wanted to take started
6:59
Speaker 1: to bubble up for you?
7:05
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I have written about a lot of
7:11
Speaker 3: bad and scary things over my career and Every now
7:16
Speaker 3: and then I felt like I shouldn't just be a spectator.
7:21
Speaker 3: Maybe I should try to get involved and try to help.
7:25
Speaker 3: I was and I'm still convinced that doing the right
7:29
Speaker 3: kind of journalism is constructive and valuable. But this time
7:36
Speaker 3: just felt a little bit different for me as a citizen.
7:40
Speaker 3: There's a threat that we'll no longer have the power
7:46
Speaker 3: to decide who governs us or to ensure that the
7:52
Speaker 3: rule of law is upheld, to ensure that constitutional rights
7:57
Speaker 3: are upheld. There is way too much support for sort
8:02
Speaker 3: of dictatorial powers in the hands of one candidate or
8:07
Speaker 3: one president. And I felt like at this time, The
8:11
Speaker 3: most important thing I could be doing was to deliberately
8:16
Speaker 3: try to influence events. And that is not quite kosher
8:22
Speaker 3: for a journalist.
8:24
Speaker 1: And when did you start getting that inkling that you
8:26
Speaker 1: wanted to do that? Like more recently, like, you know,
8:28
Speaker 1: in the last four years? Do you remember when it
8:30
Speaker 1: started to occur to you that maybe this is where
8:32
Speaker 1: I'm going to head?
8:32
Speaker 3: So I did a cover story for The Atlantic a
8:35
Speaker 3: few months before the election in 2020. And it was
8:39
Speaker 3: called The Election That Could Break America.
8:41
Speaker 2: A very memorable story.
8:43
Speaker 3: It got attention. I felt like I'd had some impact.
8:48
Speaker 3: I felt like I'd issued a warning and it did
8:50
Speaker 3: motivate people and institutions. I felt like I did my job.
8:56
Speaker 3: But then a year later, I wrote another cover story.
8:59
Speaker 3: It was called January 6th was just practice.
9:04
Speaker 1: In this story, Barton investigated Republican efforts to seize power
9:08
Speaker 1: regardless of the vote in the 2024 presidential election. the
9:11
Speaker 1: election we're in the middle of right now. He looked
9:14
Speaker 1: at how Republicans have been preparing legal theories to swap
9:17
Speaker 1: in Trump-friendly electors, replacing officials on election boards state by state,
9:22
Speaker 1: pushing bills that would give them more control over vote tallying.
9:26
Speaker 1: While he was reporting on this, Barton went to a
9:28
Speaker 1: protest in D.C. in support of people being held on
9:32
Speaker 1: criminal charges after invading the Capitol on January 6th. It
9:37
Speaker 1: was here that he met the person who had set
9:39
Speaker 1: him on a new life path. A New Yorker who
9:41
Speaker 1: Barton ended up profiling in the cover story.
9:45
Speaker 3: I picked a guy out of the crowd. He was
9:48
Speaker 3: a tall man wearing a New York firefighter's uniform. And
9:54
Speaker 3: other people sort of seemed to be deferring to him
9:57
Speaker 3: and listening to him. So I struck up a conversation.
10:00
Speaker 3: and he was a very pleasant guy and opened a conversation,
10:07
Speaker 3: you know, which is always true if you go to
10:09
Speaker 3: one of those mega events. And I ended up talking
10:14
Speaker 3: to him for probably 12 hours over a period of days.
10:18
Speaker 3: What was his name? Richard Patterson. I just tried to
10:25
Speaker 3: probe him in ways that were consistent with my journalistic
10:29
Speaker 3: methods over the years. Like if I could just actually
10:31
Speaker 3: examine a belief and produce evidence, maybe I could change minds.
10:39
Speaker 3: Maybe we could come to a common understanding of the truth.
10:42
Speaker 3: He would give me some election statistics and say, I
10:46
Speaker 3: don't know, there were more votes for Biden in Pennsylvania
10:50
Speaker 3: than there were registered voters. So obviously there was fraud.
10:56
Speaker 3: And so I went out and did a little research
10:58
Speaker 3: on that and figured out what the origin of that
11:01
Speaker 3: claim was. You know, I said that originated in this
11:05
Speaker 3: tweet by a person who conflated two different categories of numbers.
11:10
Speaker 3: So This number came from this source, and that number
11:13
Speaker 3: came from that source, and it's apples and oranges, so
11:16
Speaker 3: it's actually not true.
11:17
Speaker 2: And you sent him the sources, the underlying sources?
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Speaker 3: And I sent them to him, and I also talked
11:22
Speaker 3: to him about it on the phone. This was after
11:25
Speaker 3: the demonstration. And that was like a complete failure. It
11:31
Speaker 3: just glanced off him. he didn't engage with it because, uh,
11:39
Speaker 3: I don't know, cognitive dissonancy, you know, he was convinced
11:41
Speaker 3: of something. And so if that evidence was no good,
11:44
Speaker 3: he just, he's just switched immediately to another one.
11:48
Speaker 2: And was that surprising to you?
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Speaker 3: I mean, I kind of, I was generically aware that
11:55
Speaker 3: people did this, but I, I guess I imagined that
12:01
Speaker 3: the cure had not been administered properly and that, If
12:05
Speaker 3: I only just kind of persuaded someone to kind of
12:08
Speaker 3: engage with facts, the thing might go, oh, that's not
12:12
Speaker 3: what I thought. That's different. Maybe I was mistaken. I mean,
12:18
Speaker 3: so it really did kind of undermine my faith in
12:24
Speaker 3: what I do for a living as a journalist.
12:27
Speaker 2: That experience with Richard Patterson, the firefighter.
12:29
Speaker 3: Yeah.
12:32
Speaker 1: Barton didn't give up. Richard Patterson kept presenting him with
12:36
Speaker 1: more stories and theories, and Barton kept running them to
12:38
Speaker 1: the ground. Like, there was a man who broke into
12:41
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi's office at the Capitol on January 6th and
12:44
Speaker 1: stole a computer. Patterson told Barton that he believed that
12:48
Speaker 1: man was actually a member of Antifa, the left-wing group,
12:51
Speaker 1: masquerading as a Trump supporter.
12:54
Speaker 3: And I said, how do you know that? Why do
12:57
Speaker 3: you think that? And this one, uh, He was able
13:03
Speaker 3: to pinpoint– he named a retired general who had explained
13:10
Speaker 3: that this was the truth in a Rumble video that
13:14
Speaker 3: he had seen.
13:14
Speaker 2: Rumble is like an online platform basically.
13:16
Speaker 3: Rumble, yeah. It's the kind of right-wing YouTube. So I
13:20
Speaker 3: went and found the video and then I interviewed the general.
13:25
Speaker 3: I tracked him down and asked him how he knew.
13:29
Speaker 2: How he knew that it was Antifa masquerading as.
13:32
Speaker 3: Right. Actually, his view was it was Antifa working alongside U.S.
13:37
Speaker 3: special forces from the deep state who had actually on
13:42
Speaker 3: January 6th broken into Nancy Pelosi's office and stolen her computer.
13:48
Speaker 3: And he said that he had a source who he
13:53
Speaker 3: wouldn't name to me who had been a witness on
13:56
Speaker 3: the ground who had said, Those guys looked like special forces.
14:02
Speaker 3: And as they were leaving the capital, they had bulges
14:06
Speaker 3: under their coats that were sort of rectangular. And they
14:11
Speaker 3: looked like they could be laptops. That was the evidence.
14:15
Speaker 2: Okay.
14:16
Speaker 3: Which is, I hope your listeners will agree, comically inadequate.
14:21
Speaker 3: for claiming that it's Antifa backed by special forces, rectangular bulge,
14:25
Speaker 3: and that he knew that they were the ones who
14:27
Speaker 3: had gone into Nancy Pelosi's office and stolen her.
14:29
Speaker 2: And he had nothing more than that, obviously.
14:31
Speaker 3: That's all he had. Yeah.
14:32
Speaker 2: Okay.
14:33
Speaker 3: And then I got a call back from this general's
14:36
Speaker 3: son who said, I heard you talk to my father.
14:40
Speaker 3: And I said, yeah. He said, I really wish you
14:43
Speaker 3: wouldn't use that interview. My father has dementia. And we're
14:48
Speaker 3: trying to get him to stop talking about this stuff
14:50
Speaker 3: in public. So, I mean, that was the evidence. The
14:53
Speaker 3: evidence was, you know, a preposterous story by a guy
14:57
Speaker 3: with dementia. But he had convinced probably a lot of people,
15:00
Speaker 3: including my firefighter, Richard Patterson.
15:03
Speaker 2: And then did you go talk to Richard Patterson about this?
15:06
Speaker 3: And I told him the whole conversation. I didn't write
15:09
Speaker 3: all of it because it was very personal and, you know,
15:11
Speaker 3: a guy talking about his father's decline. But I told
15:16
Speaker 3: it all to the firefighter and he said, You know,
15:21
Speaker 3: this general's a patriot. I believe him more than I
15:23
Speaker 3: believe the FBI. It just, I mean, no impact. There's
15:36
Speaker 3: a little bit of a crisis of confidence. I'm not
15:39
Speaker 3: saying I've lost all belief in the importance of journalism.
15:41
Speaker 3: I haven't. But it started to feel like that was
15:45
Speaker 3: not the most powerful thing tool available to try to
15:50
Speaker 3: protect democracy at a time when it's under threat.
15:54
Speaker 2: It's interesting.
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Speaker 1: It's like you got a firsthand experience of what it
15:57
Speaker 1: means to put reporting out into the world. Like normally
16:00
Speaker 1: you're reporting something and you're publishing it and there's a
16:03
Speaker 1: bit of a distance between you as the journalist and
16:06
Speaker 1: the readers. You don't totally know how the findings or
16:09
Speaker 1: the facts are resonating in people's minds, what they're making
16:11
Speaker 1: of them. And here you had a very kind of
16:13
Speaker 1: acute experience face-to-face with someone where you did reporting and
16:18
Speaker 1: showed it to them and it was completely useless.
16:23
Speaker 3: Yeah. It wasn't just that I was putting it. Well,
16:26
Speaker 3: first of all, you're right. You tend to get feedback
16:30
Speaker 3: from strong partisans. So you get, you know, angry, trollish
16:34
Speaker 3: kinds of emails and phone calls from one group and
16:37
Speaker 3: you get, thank God for you. That great story. What
16:43
Speaker 3: can I do? Kind of emails from someone else. But
16:47
Speaker 3: you'd don't get reactions from very many average readers here.
16:54
Speaker 3: I was not only putting it out in the world,
16:55
Speaker 3: but I was interactively explaining it to someone and iteratively
17:00
Speaker 3: going through, you know, so why do you think this?
17:04
Speaker 3: And now here's the documentation and what's your next point?
17:09
Speaker 3: And we went back and forth and back and forth.
17:11
Speaker 3: And at the end of it, he was just absolutely unchanged.
17:17
Speaker 3: And it just made me wonder, what's the value of
17:24
Speaker 3: doing what I'm doing?
17:30
Speaker 1: Documenting reality no longer felt like enough. Part of the
17:35
Speaker 1: problem is that even in the best of circumstances, it
17:37
Speaker 1: is so much work to document reality truthfully. An aging
17:43
Speaker 1: general can casually spit out something untrue.
17:45
Speaker 2: They took Pelosi's People post it with almost no effort
17:50
Speaker 2: or thought.
17:52
Speaker 4: There were some people in there that were special forces
17:55
Speaker 4: mixed with Antifa, and they took her laptop.
17:58
Speaker 1: And now, if Barton wants to say something true about
18:00
Speaker 1: this as a journalist, he has to dig up this video,
18:03
Speaker 1: track down the general's phone number, prep his questions, call
18:06
Speaker 1: the general. He has to get him to agree to
18:08
Speaker 1: talk to him. Then he has to take the call
18:10
Speaker 1: from his son. He has to comfort him, evaluate what's
18:12
Speaker 1: ethical to report or not. He has to figure out
18:14
Speaker 1: how to write it in a way that makes people
18:16
Speaker 1: care and helps them understand why it's important. To help
18:19
Speaker 1: him do all this, the Atlantic Magazine pays an editor,
18:22
Speaker 1: probably a few, a team of fact-checkers to make sure
18:24
Speaker 1: he didn't miss anything, lawyers to review it. They put
18:27
Speaker 1: the story online and distribute and market it so the
18:29
Speaker 1: facts Barton ferreted out actually get in front of you,
18:32
Speaker 1: in front of us, people. Even after all that, you
18:36
Speaker 1: can't ever really unstir the creamer from the coffee. You
18:40
Speaker 1: have to simply report, the creamer is spoiled. and hope
18:43
Speaker 1: people listen to you and decide not to take a sip.
18:47
Speaker 1: But what I think many of us have experienced in
18:49
Speaker 1: the last seven or eight years, and what Barton experienced
18:52
Speaker 1: with Richard Patterson, is that people are drinking the spoiled
18:55
Speaker 1: cream anyway. They trust the dairy brand more than they
18:58
Speaker 1: trust the journalists saying it's rotten. This is the thing
19:02
Speaker 1: that's so existentially troubling to me and to lots of
19:05
Speaker 1: journalists I know, and apparently also to our high priest,
19:09
Speaker 1: Barton Gelman.
19:10
Speaker 3: I had a growing.
19:14
Speaker 3: Loss of confidence in the way I had looked at
19:18
Speaker 3: my journalistic role over the years. I mean, I always
19:22
Speaker 3: felt like I was aiming in my stories for someone,
19:30
Speaker 3: for an audience that wanted to know what's true. And
19:34
Speaker 3: that if I found interesting things that were not already
19:39
Speaker 3: in the public record, if I kind of dug in
19:41
Speaker 3: and found something important was happening. And I showed my
19:44
Speaker 3: work and I displayed my evidence that there were lots
19:47
Speaker 3: of people who were open to be convinced about what's
19:51
Speaker 3: true in the world and the super amplified polarization of
19:58
Speaker 3: our sort of politics and media and the kind of
20:04
Speaker 3: epistemological crisis that we're in where, uh, it's harder and
20:10
Speaker 3: harder to find any common understanding of the truth, was
20:15
Speaker 3: making my work, I wouldn't go nearly as far as
20:19
Speaker 3: saying irrelevant, but less impactful. I wondered if I was
20:25
Speaker 3: just writing for the already convinced. I mean, how many
20:30
Speaker 3: people who think that Biden defrauded his way to the
20:36
Speaker 3: 2020 election victory, are reading The Atlantic, right? I mean,
20:41
Speaker 3: it started feeling to me like my job was not
20:46
Speaker 3: adequate to our times. And that, you know, my view
20:51
Speaker 3: that truth is sort of an elemental value that needs
20:55
Speaker 3: to be served by, you know, careful sifting of evidence.
20:59
Speaker 3: I mean, it just might not be as important as
21:02
Speaker 3: it seemed to me it was earlier in my career.
21:06
Speaker 1: I was stunned, frankly, to hear Barton's thinking about this.
21:10
Speaker 1: I wasn't surprised that he'd encountered people who dismissed facts
21:13
Speaker 1: and that he was disturbed by that. What shocked me
21:16
Speaker 1: is the conclusion he came to after that experience, that
21:19
Speaker 1: this lifelong journalist's response to our country's turn away from
21:23
Speaker 1: the truth has been to say, maybe truth is a
21:26
Speaker 1: battleground I should cede. Maybe if my goal is to
21:30
Speaker 1: protect democracy, there are more important battles to fight. I've
21:34
Speaker 1: heard plenty of journalists talk about their own crises of
21:37
Speaker 1: confidence in our work. I mean, even Ira over drinks.
21:41
Speaker 4: You know, like I came into journalism feeling like, oh,
21:44
Speaker 4: if you sort of lay out a case with information
21:49
Speaker 4: that's true, like you could persuade people and that would
21:54
Speaker 4: change something. And I feel like what I've seen is
21:57
Speaker 4: that's not true.
22:00
Speaker 1: But I don't think I've heard any other journalists say
22:02
Speaker 1: what Barton seemed to be saying. That maybe fighting for
22:05
Speaker 1: the truth, which is the foundation of our profession, isn't
22:09
Speaker 1: the most effective use of his energy right now. Not
22:12
Speaker 1: if he wants to improve things. I mean that's kind
22:14
Speaker 1: of how I've heard you boil it down, the lesson
22:16
Speaker 1: of that experience. Basically like maybe I've been wrong about
22:21
Speaker 1: how important truth is.
22:24
Speaker 3: Our country is in a kind of crisis about truth
22:29
Speaker 3: and it really was brought home to me. So I
22:33
Speaker 3: made a phone call.
22:38
Speaker 1: After a quick break, what Barton Gelman's doing now that
22:41
Speaker 1: he felt he couldn't do as a journalist. And if
22:43
Speaker 1: you want to hear the one anecdote from my interview
22:45
Speaker 1: with Barton Gelman that I really wanted to get in
22:47
Speaker 1: but couldn't figure out a way to, it'll be in
22:50
Speaker 1: our newsletter. That's at kcrw.com slash question everything. The person
22:58
Speaker 1: Barton Gelman called when he decided to leave journalism was
23:01
Speaker 1: the president of the Brennan Center.
23:03
Speaker 3: I said, I'm thinking I want to step off the sidelines.
23:08
Speaker 3: Can you use me over there? And he said, well,
23:11
Speaker 3: that's interesting. What do you want to do? And I said,
23:16
Speaker 3: I want to help protect the integrity of the 2024
23:22
Speaker 3: election and I want to plan for how you could
23:31
Speaker 3: restrain authoritarian acts by the president if Trump is elected
23:36
Speaker 3: in 2025. And he said, well, we're doing a lot
23:41
Speaker 3: of the one and not as much of the other.
23:44
Speaker 2: The other being planning for.
23:47
Speaker 3: Right, planning for a Trump presidency if he tried to
23:51
Speaker 3: carry out the authoritarian agenda he's talking about. And so
23:57
Speaker 3: that's what I did.
24:02
Speaker 1: Barton's preparing for if Donald Trump is elected president again.
24:06
Speaker 1: What he's mostly been up to since he joined the
24:07
Speaker 1: Brennan Center is running war games.
24:10
Speaker 2: Simulations. Maybe you've heard of these.
24:11
Speaker 1: Not about war per se, but about high-stakes scenarios that
24:15
Speaker 1: could happen under a second Trump presidency. Kind of like
24:18
Speaker 1: Model UN for grown-ups. Again, the Brennan Center is nonpartisan.
24:22
Speaker 1: They're doing work to prep for a Democratic victory, too.
24:25
Speaker 1: But they acknowledge the unique authoritarian actions that Trump has
24:29
Speaker 1: either taken— such as attempting to prevent the peaceful transfer
24:32
Speaker 1: of power after the last election, or that Trump said
24:35
Speaker 1: he will take if he's elected again. Barton isn't focused
24:39
Speaker 1: on counteracting policies Trump might try to implement, like tax
24:42
Speaker 1: policy or climate or abortion. He's specifically focused on combating
24:47
Speaker 1: what he's identified as authoritarian behavior, figuring out ways to
24:51
Speaker 1: legally restrain a president who's, say, turning law enforcement or
24:55
Speaker 1: the military against his enemies. or against demonstrators exercising their
24:59
Speaker 1: constitutional right to protest, or going after election officials to
25:03
Speaker 1: get them to change results. So over the first half
25:06
Speaker 1: of this year, Barton gathered 175 people from around the
25:09
Speaker 1: country for five simulations, including former officials from the Trump
25:14
Speaker 1: White House and other administrations, former cabinet secretaries and congresspeople
25:18
Speaker 1: and governors and state attorneys general, labor leaders, execs, organizers,
25:22
Speaker 1: retired military generals. Everyone was given a role to play.
25:27
Speaker 1: There was a blue team, which were the, quote, pro-democracy forces,
25:30
Speaker 1: and the red team, which included the cabinet, White House staff,
25:34
Speaker 1: and someone playing President Trump.
25:36
Speaker 3: Who was instructed to make his moves based on the
25:41
Speaker 3: sort of known and declared Trump authoritarian agenda. And then,
25:45
Speaker 3: you know, members of his cabinet and his agencies would
25:47
Speaker 3: try to carry them out, and his outside supporters would
25:50
Speaker 3: push them. And Pro-democracy forces could range from governors, state
25:57
Speaker 3: attorney general, members of Congress, NGOs, and so forth.
26:03
Speaker 2: And what was the goal of these exercises?
26:04
Speaker 3: We tried to restrain him.
26:05
Speaker 2: What was the goal of these exercises?
26:07
Speaker 3: The goal was to go beyond the kind of first
26:12
Speaker 3: step of saying, well, if Trump tries to do that,
26:15
Speaker 3: we'll just sue him. We wanted to see what happens
26:18
Speaker 3: if you iterate over several rounds of moves and people...
26:23
Speaker 3: respond to the authoritarian move, and then the president responds
26:28
Speaker 3: to their response, and then they have to think about
26:31
Speaker 3: what to do next. But the objective was to test
26:34
Speaker 3: strategies and tactics that could deflect or delay or diminish
26:40
Speaker 3: the damage of what Trump might do if he carries
26:46
Speaker 3: out his declared plans.
26:49
Speaker 1: What Barton and the participants learned from running these simulations?
26:52
Speaker 1: is that our system is not set up very well
26:55
Speaker 1: to deal with a president, Trump or anyone, intent on
26:57
Speaker 1: abusing their office.
26:59
Speaker 3: We didn't really think it would be likely we could
27:02
Speaker 3: stop him in many areas because the president has so
27:06
Speaker 3: much power. And honestly, there's a structural advantage for the
27:13
Speaker 3: president if he is not especially worried about whether he
27:20
Speaker 3: breaks rules or laws. It's a conundrum. How do you
27:24
Speaker 3: protect the law against someone who doesn't care very much
27:27
Speaker 3: about it? Everybody was a little stunned at how poorly
27:32
Speaker 3: Blue did in the games to restrain an authoritarian president.
27:38
Speaker 3: And they almost to a person came out determined to
27:43
Speaker 3: kind of strengthen the guardrails.
27:47
Speaker 1: Barton and his team put together practical lessons from the games. One,
27:52
Speaker 1: they found there was too much of a reliance on
27:54
Speaker 1: lawsuits to try and counteract simulation Trump's behavior. Lawsuits were
27:58
Speaker 1: often too slow for what was happening on the ground.
28:02
Speaker 1: What Barton and the Brennan Center are suggesting instead is
28:04
Speaker 1: that people prepare in advance. They say governors and other
28:08
Speaker 1: state officials should be meeting with their legal teams now
28:11
Speaker 1: to talk about what they could do to push back
28:13
Speaker 1: if Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy
28:15
Speaker 1: the military against protesters in U.S.
28:17
Speaker 2: Cities.
28:18
Speaker 1: Or send federal marshals abruptly rounding up anyone who can't
28:22
Speaker 1: prove their legal immigration status on the spot. Or, this
28:25
Speaker 1: is one I hadn't thought of, if one state's National
28:28
Speaker 1: Guard were deployed across the border to another state. Officials
28:33
Speaker 1: should understand the full limits of their own legal power
28:35
Speaker 1: in advance, Barton says, so they're not figuring it out
28:38
Speaker 1: on the fly. And they should publicly declare ahead of
28:41
Speaker 1: the election their red lines and what they would do
28:44
Speaker 1: if Trump crossed them. Like, If Trump sends the National
28:48
Speaker 1: Guard to suppress protesters in Portland, the state of Oregon
28:51
Speaker 1: will do XYZ. Other suggestions Barton and his team came
28:55
Speaker 1: away with. Pro-democracy folks should be raising money and setting
28:58
Speaker 1: up teams of crisis communications people and security experts, and yes, lawyers,
29:04
Speaker 1: to protect election and other state workers who Trump and
29:07
Speaker 1: his allies could slander and put in danger. To fight
29:10
Speaker 1: back if Trump, as he's promised, fires thousands of civil
29:13
Speaker 1: servants he deems corrupt. to defend people he sees as
29:17
Speaker 1: his enemies, against whom he's promised to seek retribution. Also,
29:21
Speaker 1: let me use my journalistic platform to inform you, they
29:25
Speaker 1: found in the simulations that one of the most effective
29:27
Speaker 1: ways to push back against presidential abuse of power were
29:30
Speaker 1: sustained mass demonstrations by the public. Barton and his colleagues
29:35
Speaker 1: are sharing these suggestions with people across the country. They're
29:38
Speaker 1: hoping the people who took part in the exercises, many
29:41
Speaker 1: of whom formerly worked in government and still have connections,
29:44
Speaker 1: will go galvanize their colleagues, get them to use these
29:47
Speaker 1: findings to prepare. I get that simulations, advising officials, it's
29:53
Speaker 1: not normally the kind of stuff we think of as
29:55
Speaker 1: part of a journalist's job description. But the way Barton
29:58
Speaker 1: framed his career change in the tweet where he announced it,
30:01
Speaker 1: that as a journalist he was on the sidelines, that
30:03
Speaker 1: was his word, and that he had to shed the
30:06
Speaker 1: title of journalist in order to fight for democracy, I
30:10
Speaker 1: think that struck a nerve with me. I started to
30:13
Speaker 1: wonder if, by Barton's estimation, the work he's doing now
30:16
Speaker 1: can do more for our government and society than reporting
30:19
Speaker 1: in the way we're used to thinking of it. Why
30:21
Speaker 1: couldn't what he's doing now be part of a journalist's
30:23
Speaker 1: job description?
30:25
Speaker 2: Is it really that different? Can I ask you what
30:28
Speaker 2: were you allowed to do or able.
30:29
Speaker 1: To do running these simulations now that you've left journalism
30:33
Speaker 1: that you weren't able to do as a journalist?
30:36
Speaker 3: What I could do differently now in this role was
30:40
Speaker 3: I could design the exercise. I could say this is
30:45
Speaker 3: what I want to test against. I mean as a journalist,
30:48
Speaker 3: I couldn't recruit a former governor or a three-star general
30:53
Speaker 3: to come do an exercise like this and talk them
30:56
Speaker 3: into it.
30:58
Speaker 1: You couldn't or it just kind of was– like something
31:00
Speaker 1: I'm interested in just in the part of what my
31:02
Speaker 1: show is trying to interrogate is what can we reconsider
31:07
Speaker 1: about what we do as journalists? And so I'm curious
31:09
Speaker 1: if you feel like there's something that is just at
31:12
Speaker 1: odds kind of fundamentally between being able to do what
31:15
Speaker 1: you're describing now that you've left journalism and journalism itself
31:19
Speaker 1: or could we do those things and should we be
31:21
Speaker 1: doing those things?
31:22
Speaker 2: Well, that's interesting.
31:23
Speaker 3: I mean, I think there are some things that journalists
31:27
Speaker 3: can do that are somehow related to this exercise I
31:32
Speaker 3: just did. I mean, journalists and pollsters bring in focus
31:36
Speaker 3: groups and ask them questions, and they can write about that.
31:40
Speaker 3: I don't know whether it would be within the normal
31:44
Speaker 3: span of journalism to create an exercise like this, a role-playing.
31:49
Speaker 1: Game, Barton and I went back and forth on this
31:53
Speaker 1: for a bit. I never felt persuaded. I got the
31:56
Speaker 1: sense that the distinction Barton was drawing was in large
31:59
Speaker 1: part a personal one. It sounds like it felt different
32:02
Speaker 1: to you. You felt different doing it. I'm curious about that.
32:06
Speaker 1: Was there a moment where you felt like this is
32:09
Speaker 1: what I left to do?
32:10
Speaker 2: This feels different. This feels like I'm off the sidelines.
32:16
Speaker 3: You know, I had a conversation with one well-known litigator
32:22
Speaker 3: in the democracy space. And this person sort of apologized
32:27
Speaker 3: for being late to a Zoom call and said I was,
32:30
Speaker 3: you know, sort of finishing logistical arrangements for moving out
32:35
Speaker 3: of the country. And I could tell from the tone
32:39
Speaker 3: and the look on the face, this wasn't a joke.
32:42
Speaker 3: I said, you're serious? Yes, I'm serious. If Trump's elected,
32:46
Speaker 3: I'm not staying. I said, you can't go. I mean,
32:49
Speaker 3: you're exactly the person we need to protect the rule
32:54
Speaker 3: of law. You'll be needed more than ever if Trump
32:57
Speaker 3: wins and tries to do those authoritarian things he's talked about.
33:02
Speaker 3: This person said, look, I am on a target list
33:05
Speaker 3: of people that Trump and his allies want to prosecute.
33:10
Speaker 3: And I'm just not going to stay here for, you know,
33:13
Speaker 3: kind of a spurious criminal charges that are going to
33:16
Speaker 3: ruin my life for years. And that is a dilemma.
33:23
Speaker 3: It's a risk for people who stand up and oppose autocracy.
33:28
Speaker 3: But one of the messages that I'd like to send
33:31
Speaker 3: is you have to stay and fight. You have to
33:34
Speaker 3: stand up. I mean, Americans can't just stand down to
33:38
Speaker 3: an authoritarian and watch their liberties erode. It's going to
33:43
Speaker 3: take a lot of people to stay and fight.
33:50
Speaker 1: It's interesting that when I asked Barton to tell me
33:52
Speaker 1: a moment that felt different to him from his years
33:54
Speaker 1: as a journalist, the anecdote he finally landed on was
33:57
Speaker 1: this one. I left mulling over why exactly. Then I
34:02
Speaker 1: imagined myself on Barton's end of that conversation with the litigator,
34:07
Speaker 1: my journalist self, talking to a prominent attorney known for
34:10
Speaker 1: filing lawsuits against Trump and his allies, who's making real
34:14
Speaker 1: preparations to decamp from the U.S.
34:16
Speaker 2: If Trump wins again.
34:18
Speaker 1: If this person had made that revelation to me, would
34:21
Speaker 1: my response have been to give them a rallying call?
34:24
Speaker 1: Would I have told them that they had to stay
34:26
Speaker 1: and fight like Barton did? Or would I have simply
34:29
Speaker 1: asked questions?
34:30
Speaker 2: Said, tell me more.
34:32
Speaker 1: What led to this decision? How do you feel about it?
34:36
Speaker 1: Can this conversation be on the record? Honestly, I'd probably
34:41
Speaker 1: do the latter. But that's not where Barton's at anymore.
34:45
Speaker 1: He's assumed a whole new identity.
34:48
Speaker 3: I just feel fully comfortable with the idea that I
34:52
Speaker 3: am an advocate, that I'm trying to make something happen
34:56
Speaker 3: and not just describe the world as it is. Describing
34:59
Speaker 3: the world as it is is absolutely centrally valuable to
35:03
Speaker 3: American democracy. And I don't feel like I wasted one
35:08
Speaker 3: minute of my professional life doing that. I may go
35:11
Speaker 3: back to it at some point. But right now, I
35:17
Speaker 3: like deliberately setting out to change something as opposed to
35:23
Speaker 3: kind of recording it.
35:29
Speaker 1: Four years ago this month, Barton had just published his
35:31
Speaker 1: story about the 2020 election, the election that could break America.
35:36
Speaker 1: Now we're a month and a half away from the
35:37
Speaker 1: next one, a presidential election that Barton feels is possibly
35:40
Speaker 1: more threatening to our democracy than the last. And Barton's
35:43
Speaker 1: quit journalism, and it feels more unclear than ever. what
35:47
Speaker 1: those of us who are still in it should be
35:48
Speaker 1: doing to help fortify our country against authoritarianism. I desperately
35:53
Speaker 1: want journalism to be able to expand enough so.
35:56
Speaker 2: We can do that. But it's hard. I don't know
35:59
Speaker 2: what to do exactly.
36:00
Speaker 1: I feel lost and a little embarrassed, like I'm throwing
36:03
Speaker 1: out random ideas. Should news organizations start running war games?
36:07
Speaker 1: Should we send advice to governors on how to combat
36:09
Speaker 1: an autocratic president? Or should we direct our energy inwards,
36:13
Speaker 1: towards trying to innovate more in our wheelhouse? turn all
36:16
Speaker 1: our efforts towards fixing this profound problem which led Barton
36:19
Speaker 1: to quit, of people no longer trusting us, no longer
36:23
Speaker 1: believing facts.
36:25
Speaker 2: That's what we take on next week.
36:27
Speaker 1: One of our producers met a married couple that did
36:30
Speaker 1: not have a common understanding of the facts, who were
36:32
Speaker 1: very politically divided, who were brought back together by, of
36:36
Speaker 1: all things, an online newsletter. This newsletter is doing what
36:41
Speaker 1: Barton Gellman was unable to do with firefighter Richard Patterson,
36:45
Speaker 1: It's even changing the minds of people who used to
36:47
Speaker 1: believe the 2020 election was stolen.
36:49
Speaker 5: I have a trust in their news gathering and presentation abilities,
36:54
Speaker 5: head and shoulders above any other news gathering source. I
36:58
Speaker 5: have a trust level there that's unequaled.
37:02
Speaker 1: That's coming up on October 10th. Question Everything is a
37:09
Speaker 1: production of KCRW and Placement.com. Please follow us on Apple, Spotify,
37:14
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts, including YouTube. Leave us
37:17
Speaker 1: a review if you're so inclined. I want to mention
37:19
Speaker 1: that we did speak to firefighter Richard Patterson, who said
37:22
Speaker 1: he didn't feel he was showing cognitive dissonance when he
37:25
Speaker 1: was talking to Barton and claimed he didn't even remember
37:27
Speaker 1: some of the evidence Barton said he showed him. Patterson
37:30
Speaker 1: told our fact checker, it may well be that I'm
37:32
Speaker 1: stuck on things that are inaccurate, but I would hope
37:34
Speaker 1: that doesn't include things where information comes out that proves
37:37
Speaker 1: it wrong. Today's episode was produced by Lisa Pollack and
37:42
Speaker 1: me and edited by Neil Drumming. Our show is made
37:45
Speaker 1: by executive producer Robin Simeon, producer Zach St. Louis, and
37:49
Speaker 1: production intern Emily Malterre. Jonathan Goldstein is a contributing editor.
37:54
Speaker 1: Fact-checking by Kaylin Lynch. Sound design by Brendan Baker. Music
37:58
Speaker 1: by Matt McGinley. Our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel,
38:02
Speaker 1: Gina Delvac, Tejal Ajmera, and Jennifer Farrow. Special thanks to
38:06
Speaker 1: Untitled Studios. We'll be back on Thursday, October 10th.
38:13
Speaker 3: Thank you.