Doug Jones on MAGA, Misinformation, and the Next Insurrection
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Hey folks, it's Rick. We're 49 days out from this election. Time is running down fast. The things you need to be thinking about not only are winning this election, but what happens after. My guest today is former Senator Doug Jones. He's part of a brilliant new documentary called War Game. It's a scenario that is a

a war game playing out over January 6th, part two. What happens if the losing candidate declares that they won? What happens if people in the military and law enforcement this time join them? What happens if our country is at risk in a way that we can't imagine right now? Well, folks, I'll tell you something. It is at risk. This film is important. Doug is a brilliant and wonderful guy, a dear friend, and I welcome him to the Lincoln Project podcast. Let's get going. You're a

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. There is not a liberal America, any conservative America, United States of America.

Good night and good luck. Hey, folks. Welcome back to the Lincoln Project Podcast. I am your host today, Rick Wilson. As always, we are going to talk to some of the smartest, most interesting people out there in the pro-democracy fight. And I'm glad to be joined today by my friend Doug Jones, who is part of a phenomenal documentary called War Game.

War Game is a scenario that is chilling and all too real. So, Doug, thank you for coming on the show today. As folks, you may have known, Doug was a former U.S. Senator from Alabama. In this film, he plays the Attorney General of the United States. Doug, tell us about what War Game is and why it is so meaningful right now. Well, thanks for having me, Rick. It's great to see you. I appreciate this. You know, the film was actually made from an exercise.

that I was invited to participate. The Vet Votes Foundation really got the idea to kind of war game out another January 6th type insurrection when three former generals wrote an op-ed. And I think it was, I can't remember the times of the post, but they had a big op-ed saying,

we need to prepare for this better. We need to start looking at the possibility that this could happen again. No one ever dreamed that a January 6th type event would happen. And their point was, you know, we weren't prepared the way we should have been and we should do this. So the VetVotes Foundation got in touch with me and some others. And we literally met in a room, a big ballroom in a hotel in D.C.,

And we war-gamed out another one. It was an unscripted exercise where the current president of the United States, who was played by Steve Bullock, former governor of Montana, was the president who eked out a re-election win. But his opponent named Strickland had decided to not concede the election and to encourage another type insurrection. And the twist was-

Military folks went rogue and joined the insurrection. I played the attorney general. Former Senator Heidi Heitkamp played this, played the president's advisor. General Wesley Clark was in it.

And for six hours, we did this and we worked on this thing where there was some bad guys in another room and they were doing all the things that you would expect that day. And I think it's really an eye-opening experience. It was for us and a constant reminder of how fragile our democracy can be and is and how close that we came on January 6, 2021 to losing it.

and having what amounted to a coup to block the peaceful transfer of power. And it can happen again. And so it's kind of timely, I think, that people be reminded of how important our elections are, keeping them safe, secure, but respecting the outcome of the election.

You know, Doug, I think one of the things that I find most chilling about this is that the one part of the scenario that really changed a bit from January 6th, as you guys pointed out, was that the idea that military and senior military officials became sympathetic to

to this idea of overturning the election. And it wasn't just the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, 3% idiots. It was a, this, your scenario had much more serious people taking the side of the insurrection. Yeah, no, that was, that was kind of the twist that I didn't see coming when I did this as playing the attorney general.

But clearly into it, you saw defections among National Guard who had been called out. There were different military officers around the country. There was actually a, I think it may have been a brigadier general who went on social media, who called for people to defect and to join. And that was very dicey. That was really something that we had to deal with. And, you know, you had some incredible experience.

that was in that room with us, again, General Wesley Clark, of trying to deal with both the fake information that we were getting, but also the real-time information that there were defections. And I think part of the message here is that we've got to really be conscious of law enforcement and our military and the...

infiltration of some of these radicalized ideas, whether it's on the right or the left. In this particular exercise, it was from the right, but I think we've got to be cognizant that it could come from either way at this point. And that's a dangerous situation for the United States to be in. I think that's right, Doug, is that extremism has a velocity all of its own that actually sort of

defies politics after a certain point because you know the people that are invading the Capitol on January 6th it wasn't because of conservative beliefs it was because of that they were part of an extremist movement they don't have conservative beliefs anymore once they're invading the Capitol in my view as a conservative um

But this war game, as it plays out over the six hours, and no spoilers, obviously, because, folks, you should watch this, it really does ratchet up the tension about what is at stake in the country as these competing factions face off and how the information that the White House will have in this sort of thing is imperfect from the beginning. Yeah. Part of that, I think, Rick, was –

a function of the exercise and the limitations that we had. And they gave us these limitations. The bad guys in the other room had a little, a lot more leeway. And there's a, where was a control room that was kind of managing all of this. So it was imperfect from the exercise, but it's also imperfect because it really, it highlighted the fact that,

That so much, if this ever happens again, is going to be misinformation. It's going to be AI generated information. It's going to be things that you've got to have intel and boots on the ground to try to deal with. And that was something that we had to try to manage. And so you had the first...

thing that came up, which was the rogue military. But obviously there were issues in this movie and you'll see them. This is not the spoiler alert, but obviously people started gathering in state capitals around the country. And the problem I think you've got, look, I don't believe Rick

for an instant, that there is radicalization so prevalent in the military that it's dominant. But the problem is then when you have isolated cells, isolated incidents, it can grow very rapidly. It can spread and people can understand and appreciate and act on certain fears that they have. And that's the thing, Rick, I want people to understand something.

is that a lot of these folks, a lot of these folks who may become, in our view, radicalized, have a sincere belief that their country is in jeopardy. That was mentioned by one of the bad guys in there when he was just talking. They've got this belief. And so we've got to do a better job, I think, of everybody playing off the same page and understanding the same set of facts.

I think that's one of the big differentials right now in our country is that this inability to any longer have a common set of facts, common set of beliefs,

And the willingness to believe, and it exists on all sides, but it's pronounced on the MAGA side of this, this idea that one person can tell you what a fact or truth is, and you will abandon all reason, logic, knowledge, and outside fact and believe it. And when Donald Trump tells people in November, you know,

When he loses and he tells them he's won, there are going to be 80 million Americans who believe he has won that election. That, I think, is something that I think is useful about this film is it does say that there are people who are so dug in on a belief that they're going to take violent action to protect that belief.

Yeah. And, you know, Rick, I'm glad you brought that up about about Trump and the and the belief about winning or losing the election, because he's been saying that, as we know, ever since the day after the election in 2020, it was stolen that he wanted. He wanted big. It was a landslide, the whole nine yards. And people believed it because he just said it over and over. But here's something I hope people will take. And I hope, quite frankly, we can get more information out.

because in the last few days, in fact, just before we recorded this, I was listening to a press conference he was giving about how he won the debate

against Kamala Harris the other day. Yeah, I watched it too. Yeah, he just won it, won it, hands down, no question. Well, you know, I think close to 60 million people watched that debate. And I will guarantee you that there's probably, I could count on one hand, the people who really thought that he won that debate. No one in their right mind thought that he won that debate. No one thought that.

And so I think he is now giving an opportunity for folks to connect the dots with his lies. Folks, you have seen in your own eyes now, it's not some lawsuit in Arizona or a lawsuit in Georgia. You saw with your own eyes how he got crushed in this debate the other day. But yet he is lying when he says it. You know he's lying when he says it. Think about everything else he is saying.

Right, right, right. I hope people will kind of connect those dots a little bit because it will get to the point of being dangerous if they don't. Hey, folks, I want to tell you about a game-changing product. It's called pre-alcohol. I'm in politics and media, and I have to go out to meet people for drinks a lot. I do not bounce back like I used to. I really have to make a choice. Do I want a great night or a great next day? ZBiotics pre-alcohol has made that great next day possible. It is a really clear way to wake up feeling fresh and healthy.

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This war game is an idea that already had a precedent. We've seen that precedent. And I think that what we're talking about now is really important for people to process. This has happened before.

And as I always like to say that, you know, the unpunished coup is a training exercise. There are a lot of people who believe that January 6th was a morally good and right thing to do. They believe that overturning a free and fair election was the right thing to do. It should really keep people up at night, I think, Doug, because I find it so troubling that there is a –

big fraction of our country that is being primed by Trump every day. They're being told every day, they're going to cheat. They're going to cheat. They're going to steal the election. We have to stop them. Mail-in ballots are fraudulent. Same day voting is fraudulent. This state is fraudulent. That state is fraudulent. I mean,

Do you think he's doing more to prep that, to prime that pump this time than he did in 2020? It seems that way to me. It absolutely seems that way. I mean, why else would you continue to not only talk about the past, but also talk about in the present that, you know, the only way I will lose this election is if there were fraud. And remember, it's not just not the millions of Americans.

who believe that from 2020, there are how many, more than 150 or so members of Congress who voted not to certify the election. We've got members of Congress right now who are retweeting and posting things on social media claiming that Haitians are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. As funny as it is on the one hand, it's also deadly serious. That's an alternative fact universe that

that normal people don't live in. That's an alternative fact universe occupied by people who are willing to buy anything from Trump. Yeah, and it can be very deadly serious. You saw what happened, bomb threats in Springfield just yesterday. Crazy. They're seeing a rise of hate issues in Springfield right now. And that's just a small little town. I mean, that's less than 60,000 people with a Haitian population that has...

not had any real issues, but yet all of a sudden it is now the center of the universe for this misinformation and hate and really racist tropes that are going on out there. It's the only way to put it.

But it is those lies that once they take hold and they get reinforced by people that are supposed to be leaders in our Congress and public officials, that's just stunning to me. It's just not, you know, look, we all grew up with politicians, you know, kind of doing their spin on the facts sometimes, but not like this. Good Lord. This is outrageously beyond the pale.

It is at a level that somebody's going to get killed over this. Someone is going to get killed over this. Someone is going to be assaulted or bombed. We've got schools with bomb threats, folks. If you're proud of calling in a bomb threat to a school with Haitian kids in it, reassess your entire life because your brain is broken. But we're going to have people killed over this over an absolute lie. Right.

Rick, and you have been the victim of swatting. It's the same thing. I mean, that is the same issue. That has also been on both the right and the left. And we now see that the Justice Department, you know, arrested two people that had done a bunch of these things.

But people don't understand how dangerous that activity is. When people show up at someone's house that they'll know they're coming, there's nothing going on. And there's a SWAT team there. I mean, Breanna Taylor was killed because a SWAT team showed up at the wrong place and her boyfriend,

was scared to death. And he didn't know whether that was a SWAT team or somebody else coming in to get the two of them. And so it is incredibly dangerous. And the more kind of rhetoric we hear, and we're kind of venturing a little bit away from war game, which is fine, because I do think the rhetoric that is a daughter whistle for political violence is a really disturbing trend that we've seen in this country. Yeah.

So as we look at – to jump back into war game for a second. So we've got this radicalized population. You've got a losing candidate claiming that they are the winning candidate. You've got –

units in the military jumping into the side of the losing candidate in this fight, ignoring their constitutional oath. You had a lot of folks on this, in the war game who, you know, I know an awful lot of the folks that are in this film. And there are some people who are very experienced military intelligence, counterintelligence, and national security officials at every different level. When you're talking to these folks after this is over,

What was the response to some of the people who had been in the intelligence world or in the military or in the counterintelligence world to the possibilities you discussed in this film? What was their after action sort of vibe? You know, look, everybody that participated in that film was there because of the concern that it can happen again.

The morning of January 6th, no one, I don't believe, dreamed even that this would happen. No one, even folks who saw the gathering on the mall,

Figured it was just going to be another MAGA rally. Yep. And no one dreamed that they would literally march to the Capitol and do what they did. And everybody, and this was, you know, for the audience's sake here, the participants in this documentary were people from Republican and Democratic administrations. It was not just a Democratic type leaning party.

exercise and in fact except for some excerpts

every decision that you see, every interaction that you see among the participants, you wouldn't be able to tell whether they were Republican or Democrats. It was all about the rule of law. It was about the constitution. It was protecting the capitals, protecting lives. It was protecting democracy. And that's the way it should be. But everybody was there because they were concerned. They left because they, and still concerned, but everybody,

It is so important, Rick, and I told this to a panel discussion we had the other night. The thing I learned the most about this is

You can do a lot of things to protect and you can train and you can make precautions. But at the end of the day, if it does happen again, the people in that room are going to make the difference. It's the cool heads, the judgment, the nonpartisan judgment that's there to protect the United States of America that will make the difference.

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Shop blinds.com right now and get up to 45% off select styles. Rules and restrictions may apply. You know, Doug, one of the things that's been said hundreds of times since 2015, people trying to minimize the risks of anti-democratic, small D, not large D, democratic forces in the country, of extremist forces in the country, of people who would be willing to use violence to protect their political ends.

Over and over again, people say, oh, the guardrails will hold. The institutions are fine. They're strong. Nothing can go wrong here. It's all going to be fine. I think we saw January 6th it was not all going to be fine.

And when you watch this film, I think you come away with a sense it's not all going to be fine. It's not – this is not an easy like clean win for the good guys. It's not something where democracy comes out and there's no like second guessing. There's no like moment of like, oh God, what just happened? It strikes me that this is the kind of film –

That it's ambiguity in some parts of it about what's going on, what could be happening, what could we do and stay within the bounds of the law and the Constitution. You know, it's always like this asymmetric warfare to me. You've got people who believe in the law, believe in the Constitution, believe in the courts, the justice system, and people who think we're going to burn it all down because this is what we need to do.

That to me is like the most frightening message of this film. Yeah, you know, 100%, Rick. And I think people should walk away with exactly that. And the fact that, you know, we do have these guardrails in place, but they've been in place for a long, long time. And they've not been tested in the way that they were tested on January 6th. And those guardrails have been a little bit bent.

They're a little bit weakened. They're a little bit shaky. And we've got to do everything that we can to shore that up. And that takes an effort from a lot of people, from a lot of different political ideologies to make sure that those guardrails are shored up going forward because we live in a different world. I liken this to the way America was on September the 10th

2001 versus the day of September the 12th, 2001. Everything changed.

Everything changed and we had to make some adjustments that we didn't always like to make, but we made them together and we protected this country. And we've done a pretty damn good job over the years of protecting both civil liberties as well as our safety and our democracy. And we've got to be thinking about that again as we go forward. You know, I think that's a really important point you made, Doug, is that

If the guys on the good side, if the good guys in this equation had just wanted to end it,

They could have easily gone beyond the bounds of the Constitution, gone beyond the bounds of the law, gone, you know, waved habeas corpus and went after these people. Did what has only happened, you know, a couple times in our country's history. And we look back on the things like Lincoln and habeas corpus in the Civil War and FDR during World War II with Japanese Americans. We look back at those things as really bad cautionary moments. And –

It's like an old-fashioned movie trope. The criminal says, you're a cop. You can't break the law to kill me or get me. And there's almost, I think, a sense of that out there among some of these folks, like the Steve Bannons of the world, the Stephen Millers of the world, the Jack Posobiec types of the world. I think they feel like...

That the system is weak and they are more agile and more willing to go beyond the law and the lines. That does give me the occasional sense of like, hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it is. As we say in the South, Rick, it causes your pucker factor to go up. Absolutely. You know, there's no question about that. And also, I think people have to be you have to look at all of this in the context also now of a Supreme Court decision that came down last summer, which basically gave a lot of

blank checks to whoever is sitting in that Oval Office. And I have told people since that, and I'm not one, Rick, candidly, that would say that I was 100% in total disagreement with everything that the court said on that, because I do believe that the president has to have certain leeway to protect the security of this country. However-

What I've also told people is that given some of the examples that I heard, because I sat through those arguments, given some of the things that I read, I am concerned about this in that every American now ought to put, again, put character and integrity at the top of their list of things that they are going to be looking for when they go to vote for the next president of the United States. Because the ideal situation, Rick,

is that that decision will be an outlier. It will be on an island by itself and never will have to be tested because we will continue to put people in office that will respect the rule of law and respect the Constitution. You know, I think that is one of the most important elements of this is that, and one of the things I miss about my old party,

is that respecting the Constitution, respecting the rule of law, respecting the parameters of governance as we have known them in this country, that used to be considered a conservative value. That used to be considered something that conservatives would want to not only model for themselves and live for themselves, but to model for other people so they follow that along. And there have always been Republicans and Democrats who believed that that was the core value

of how you represent people as an elected official. I don't think that is the same way anymore, especially on the MAGA right, where they want to get to their goal no matter what. They don't really care seemingly about the law and justice and the things that used to be, I thought, essential to the Republican sort of political movement.

Yeah. You know, look, you clearly see an ends justify the means attitude among the MAGA right. You know, I will say I served in the Senate with a lot of folks that if you listen to them now publicly, you would think that they are totally into that camp.

But I have to believe that if this fever could break, that they're going to pull back to those conservative values that you talked about, that common set of values that people have that will allow people to get things done, to talk to each other, to disagree on political philosophy and economic policy and things like this, but not to a point where you can't

You can't come to some agreement to move this country forward. And I'm, you know, who knows what's going to happen in November. Quite frankly, I'm feeling pretty good. But at the same time,

Take nothing for granted. Take nothing for granted. And even if I'm right about who I think is going to win, you still don't know what's going to happen on that other side. Whether or not this will continue to move. My biggest fear is that they've deployed a lot of lawyers out into the states now in places like Georgia and North Carolina and Michigan and Wisconsin that

They're not the clownish figures you had in 2020 with the Rudy, Jenna Ellis, Eastman. The Four Seasons landscaping crew is not the people that are out in the field this time. They are much smarter, more considered, more restrained players.

publicly facing lawyers, but they're still determined to help Trump no matter what, and to not just vigorously represent him, but to overcome any opposition, even if he loses in a state. I think we're going to see more challenges this time in more states that will be more robustly funded and planned than we're anticipating. And that in a lot of ways is like the coup before the coup. Yeah. And there is an argument to be made

In fact, I think I was at the Texas Tribune Festival with you the other day, and Jamie Raskin kind of made this argument, is that one could think that the reason why the Trump campaign is not investing a lot of ground gain and campaign offices in these states is that they're investing in lawyers.

I think that's right.

That was my next question. Yeah. You know, there's plans being made on the other side as well. They're preparing a lot better for this. Just like we learned lessons from January 6th of 2021.

I think Democrats and the Democratic presidential campaigns learned a hell of a lot between Election Day of 2020 and January 6th in terms of their preparations and their armies. So I feel pretty good about where the response will be and how to do it. And quite frankly, they're taking some proactive measures themselves. So it's going to be an interesting legal battle, though. I agree with you that that's

It's going to be an interesting time to watch the lawyers and the legal maneuver. It sure is. I don't think this thing is over until she puts her hand on that Bible on the west front of the Capitol. And maybe not even then. Well, Doug Jones, I want to thank you so much for coming on the Lincoln Project podcast today. Folks, the film is War Game.

My fellow Americans, it is undeniable that this past election was stolen. To all those members of the armed forces, join with us to defend our liberty and land.

Seated around this room is an incredible diversity of professional experience spanning the last five presidential administrations. Most of you have sworn under oath to defend the Constitution. What happens when those in uniform break that oath? January 6th demonstrated a possible false sense of security. The next insurrection could involve members of the active duty military turning their weapons around on the folks that they are there to protect.

One of the recommendations was to war game what that might look like. I am President Hotham, Chief Executive of the United States of America. You have six hours to avert a civil war and ensure the peaceful transfer of power. Mr. President, we are going to be starting the game in three... We are here to stress test our national security system. I want them to be prepared for the worst case scenarios.

I have no idea if at the end of this exercise this country collapses or comes together. Where would we like to send a large body of armed crazies? Capital. Capital. You are confirming that there are National Guard that have in fact led protesters through. I'm going to flood the zone with fake pictures, guys. It's very difficult to find out what is real and what is... And the reaction. Are you interested in that?

It is not compromising the proceedings of the election. Yeah, it is compromising the proceedings of the election. The entire Congress is still in a bunker. Now they're playing the game. Everybody back the table. You can authorize lethal force. Pause for just a second. Is that correct? You could have federal? We've done it on the southwest border. He's going to have to make a decision.

Put your f***ing courage on the table. The United States could be on the brink of a second civil war. You've pissed off a lot of senior ranking folks from all five presidential administrations. Doing my job. Great job. Yeah.

It is coming up on September 27th on streaming. It is chilling and you need to watch it because it will remind you of what's at stake in the coming months. Winning this election is a big thing. We have to win it. We have to win it big. But beyond winning this election, we have to protect it in that scary window between November 6th

And the 20th of January. So with that, I want to thank you again, Doug, for coming on the show. Doug, do you have any social media people should follow you on? Yeah, I hadn't been doing quite as much because I get so pissed off, to be honest with you, about some of it. But my main social media is on the site formerly known as Twitter. You can follow me at DougJones.com.

And that's the main spot. And, you know, I do a lot of media here and there. Absolutely. So please tune in if you see me, and I appreciate that. And, Rick, it's always good to see you. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks, Doug. And thanks so much for helping plug the movie so folks can see it. I think it's really important. Delighted to do it. Delighted to do it. All right. Thanks again, Doug. We'll see you again next time. All right. Good night and good luck.