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The election denial movement lives on, thanks in part to the efforts of well-funded and well-organized far-right activists. Today on the show, CNN correspondent Donie O’Sullivan joins WIRED Politics Lab to talk about his forthcoming documentary examining election deniers’ new tactics, and what happens after the November vote.
Leah Feiger is @LeahFeiger. David Gilbert is @DaithaiGilbert. Donie O’Sullivan is @Donie. Write to us at politicslab@WIRED.com. Be sure to subscribe to the WIRED Politics Lab newsletter here.
Mentioned this week:Election Deniers Are Ramping Up Efforts to Disenfranchise Voters, by David GilbertMisinfoNation: The Trump Faithful, by Donie O’SullivanInside the Election Denial Groups Planning to Disrupt November, by David Gilbert
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Transcript
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Leah Feiger: This is WIRED Politics Lab, a show about how technology is changing politics. I'm Leah Feiger, the senior politics editor at WIRED. The election denial movement lives on. So much so that, according to a Washington Post and University of Maryland poll from late last year, more than a third of the United States still believes that President Joe Biden actually lost the 2020 election. Now, in 2024, many far-right activists groups are working hard to get former president Donald Trump back into the Oval Office. They're better organized and better funded, and they're already priming their followers to believe conspiracies ahead of the election. Joining me from Cork, Ireland, to talk about how election deniers are organizing is WIRED senior reporter David Gilbert. Hey, David.
David Gilbert: Hey, Leah. Good to be here.
Leah Feiger: And in his debut appearance on WIRED Politics Lab, CNN senior correspondent Donie O'Sullivan joins me in the studio today. Donie has a new documentary about election deniers coming out. It's called MisinfoNation Part 2: Patriots, Pillows, and Paper Ballots. It premieres August 11 on The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper on CNN. Donie, thank you so much for coming in.
Donie O'Sullivan: Thank you very much for having me. And thank you for connecting from Cork, David. Good of you.
David Gilbert: Yeah, no problem at all.
Leah Feiger: I think that we needed to put you both at least vaguely in the same electronic room, to prove that you were two different people.
Donie O'Sullivan: Yeah. Before we recorded this, you were saying you think we're twins. We're both from Ireland.
Leah Feiger: I did, a little bit.
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Donie O'Sullivan: Both very handsome Irish men.
David Gilbert: Yeah.
Donie O'Sullivan: They talk a lot about Hot Irish Guy Summer. I guess we encapsulate that, David, you would say.
David Gilbert: It's difficult for people who aren't from Ireland to understand just how many good-looking people there are from Ireland.
Leah Feiger: I'm so happy you're able to represent that for us today.
David Gilbert: You're welcome.
Leah Feiger: It's a shame we're not on video. But everyone, just imagine something really great. Let's jump right in. Since 2020, there have been dozens of lawsuits, a bunch of state audits, and there has not been any evidence of widespread voter fraud. So, David, Donie, why do people still believe in it?
Donie O'Sullivan: Oh, man. I think one thing we wanted to show in this doc was there's just such a widespread, persistent operation pushing this stuff. For so many Americans, for millions of Americans, maybe tens of millions of Americans, they are hearing about it every moment of every day. All the media they consume is centered around this idea that the last election was stolen.
Leah Feiger: Right.
David Gilbert: I agree. I think what comes through in the documentary is that we don't think there's a lot of coverage of it, or people aren't talking about it. But it's just that we're not watching the type of content that people who are interested and who do believe it are getting fed every single day, that's reinforcing their beliefs and adding new layers of conspiracy on top, ahead of the November vote.
Donie O'Sullivan: That's one of the reasons we focus a lot on Mike Lindell, aka the MyPillow guy. Because I think a few years ago, people would have seen him a lot, at least in the US, on their TV screens, whether it was pillow ads, or in box stores around the country, with his face selling the pillows. Or also, just on the TV with Trump, or whatever. Because of his election denialism, he's been kicked off a lot of TV networks, he's been kicked out of a lot of the big stores around the US. Therefore, you're not hearing from him as much.
Leah Feiger: Right.
Donie O'Sullivan: But he hasn't stopped.
[Archival audio]: There's no moment where you say, “You know what, I should just go back, focus on pillows?”
Mike Lindell [Archival audio]: Never, never, never. I will never look back. I can't unsee what I've seen, and I can't unknow what I know.
Donie O'Sullivan: In fact, he's built an infrastructure, he's built his own social media platform, his own videostreaming platform. He now has Rudy Giuliani working for him, doing The Rudy Giuliani Show on there. Lou Dobbs, before he passed away a few weeks ago, was doing a show on Mike Lindell's videostreaming platform. All of this is still happening. I think that's what we wanted to do with this doc, is remind people. To say, “Hey, if Harris wins in November, if all the chaos we saw in 2020 happens again, don't be surprised.”
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Leah Feiger: Right. In that, obviously, part of this does feel like a repeat in a way. You mention Mike Lindell, Rudy Giuliani. In the doc, you really do bring back a whole cast of characters pushing election conspiracies that people are pretty familiar with. Who are the new ones? Who's new on the scene that we should be keeping an eye on?
Donie O'Sullivan: There are a lot. I think that is something that is different, and I think David might agree about. What's really different about this election cycle, I think, to the last one in 2020, was there are so many more platforms now. What happened was, after January 6, 2021, Big Tech, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, et cetera, kicked off a lot of election deniers. Trump notably being one. But also, just a lot of regular Americans, regular Trump supporters got kicked off some platform in one way or the other. People started moving into new platforms, like Truth Social, which is run by Trump. But also, some existing platforms became incredibly and increasingly popular. Like Telegram, like Gab. There's also now Rumble, which is the right's YouTube, basically. All of this is out there. It's also created a lot more space for up-and-coming wannabe influencers, or whatever they want to call themselves, to start going out there, creating this election denialism content. Having an audience, but also having a way to monetize it. There's so, so, so many.
David Gilbert: What also happens is that, even though on a lot of these platforms, their followings are small … Truth Social is so much smaller than Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. But yet, Trump sticks with it. By cross-posting or talking to each other, you see Mike Lindell is on every platform, he's on every podcast. Except WIRED Politics so far, we haven't had him on.
Leah Feiger: I'm open.
Donie O'Sullivan: He would happily come on.
David Gilbert: He would, absolutely. He's on everybody. You see one influencer that may be big on Gab, or on Rumble, or on Truth Social, speaking to another influencer whose big on X or YouTube, or something else. By creating this network effect, where they all speak to each other, they all promote the same thing. They all have their MyPillow codes. It's created this network where they're all reinforcing each other's ideas. It seems as if they have a bigger audience than maybe they do on their own. The result is that millions of people are influenced by what they're saying.
Leah Feiger: What's new here, though, in terms of what they're actually pushing? Are there any fun, new election conspiracies that are at the forefront? Or are we still talking voting machines, are we still talking voting rules? Obviously, the Great Replacement theory has become much more prevalent in the discourse, as you talked about extensively in your documentary. Yeah. What are people going for right now?
Donie O'Sullivan: A lot of it is the old material worked before, so why not stick with it?
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Leah Feiger: Revival, basically.
Donie O'Sullivan: Yes, yeah. Two narratives that we focus on in this documentary is, one, of course the voting machines. Which is something that Mike Lindell is obsessed about. He is wrongly convinced that the last election was stolen through hacked voting machines linked to China, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. One thing I've tried to have a conversation with Mike, and David will know this where we're both from Ireland, it's paper ballots in Ireland. There's no voting machines. It's hand-counted paper ballots. Which, it's fine if you want to advocate for that, and you want to push that and support that. But what Mike and people like him are doing is, they are pushing for that while also saying, without evidence, that the machines are totally corrupt. In this doc, we bring people to Maricopa County in Arizona, which is the ground zero of conspiracy theories about the election. It's where the infamous cyber ninja audit happened in 2020.
Leah Feiger: As funded by Mike Lindell.
Donie O'Sullivan: Yeah. I think he had some role in it, yeah. But these machines are tested. There are audits done before and after the election. People should be able to trust the machines here. There's all that stuff going on. There's also this idea that is being pushed, particularly actually by Elon Musk. It kind of goes in with the Great Replacement theory, as you mentioned. Which is that undocumented immigrants who are coming across the southern border are going to vote en masse this November to steal the election for Harris.
[Archival audio]: They would need citizenship though, right? To vote?
[Archival audio]: Well, ideally, yes. If you're following the laws. But if you're already a group of people who don't follow the laws …
Donie O'Sullivan: What you can just really see here is that everything is being set up for that. If Harris does actually win, there's going to be this whole catalog of bullshit that people can go and grab. I had that experience, actually, in November 2020. It was three or four days before the election was called. We were actually in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at an early Stop the Steal event. I had spent the first few days of the election online, helping the CNN fact-checking team and everybody else go through the junk, and the misinformation, and everything else. The people I met in Harrisburg who were convinced that, if Biden was going to win, that the election was stolen were pointing out all these examples of, “Oh, we saw this video of ballots on fire. We saw this, we saw that.” I was able to walk through most people, "Okay, yeah. That's actually something I saw and fact-checked. Here's my explanation." People might accept it, people might not. But either way, they would say, “OK, well, then there's this other thing. And there was this other thing.” There's just this absolute fire hose of bullshit being pushed at people. It gives this idea that it's not possible to attain the truth.
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Leah Feiger: No, there's a flood, and you can't actually stem any bit of it.
David Gilbert: I was in a meeting last week with a group, one of these election denial groups, who are trying to organize. One of the people in the meeting was a poll worker from Texas. She was asking the organizers, is it OK if she challenges someone who she doesn't think belongs there or is part of the community. Is it OK if, when they come in to vote, that she challenges them? That type of idea, where people feel as if they're empowered to challenge them because they don't look like themselves, or they don't look like they belong in the area, can very quickly lead to problems and to potential violence. I think that's something that really needs to be monitored ahead of the vote. Elections in the US have never been more secure. They will be again this time around. As a result of all these election denials, everything is more transparent, everything is more secure. More testing is being done, more audits are being carried. But none of that will matter to the tens of millions of people who are convinced that elections are just fraudulent.
Donie O'Sullivan: I will say, without just kissing all your asses because I'm here, I think the reporting you guys are doing at WIRED is just so important, and what David and others are doing is focusing on this space. I frankly don't think we're doing enough of it at other outlets. I think it's going to become particularly important and informative the closer we get to the election, and then beyond as well. As people are saying, "Oh, wait, how did all this happen again?" That's the thing that just keeps popping up in my mind. Obviously, January 6th was shocking. But if you were really paying attention, I suppose, it probably wasn't surprising. Because if you are being told by your president, by all the media you consume, that American democracy is a joke, it's a fraud, it's a pretty logical thing then to go and fight for it, maybe even violently. It's all being set up again for that to happen. What's even worse this time is that the people who have been convicted for taking part in the last January 6th are now being lauded as these martyrs, as these heroes.
Leah Feiger: Right. One of the things, though, from that moment, from January 6th, from the months ahead of that with people already engaging in election denialism is it didn't always feel that organized. There was a plan for sure in place. But looking back on it now, as I'm looking at David's reporting over the last couple of weeks and months, these election denier groups, they appear to be better funded. They appear to be more organized. They appear to be canvassing, and spreading the word, and engaging with media, and engaging with law enforcement in a way that did not happen last time.
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Donie O'Sullivan: Yeah. There's a much grander infrastructure this time. We should also mention that one thing that's difficult, I think, for people to truly understand is, there isn't actually this gap anymore. Even between the small, mini-influencers and stuff that are on these platforms, and the main Republican platform and the Trump campaign. There's a massive amount of back-and-forth. You even saw, this week, Trump had some game or Twitch streamer.
[Archival audio]: Mr. President, I do want to say, first of all, you took a bullet for everyone in this room, everyone watching. Everyone.
Leah Feiger: Oh. Oh, did he? Adin, come on. Manosphere is here.
Donie O'Sullivan: All this stuff, it's a total back and forth. It's the same with all these groups that are setting up to watch polls and watch elections or whatever. It's part two of the Republican platform. Look, there's nothing wrong with wanting free and fair and safe elections.
Leah Feiger: For sure.
Donie O'Sullivan: There's nothing wrong if you want to go and get involved in your community. However, and what poll workers and election officials will tell you across the country, is that a lot of people are coming into it inspired by the conspiracy theories. And are, therefore, really looking to create problems and cause chaos.
Leah Feiger: Take me through some of the specifics. David, I know you've reported on this extensively as well, so jump on in. But what are we talking here? There's specific steps that these groups are undertaking right now. Obviously, we're recording this, it's today, Wednesday, August 7. Which is an important deadline, 90 days before the election, which means that voter roles can't be challenged after today. But there's still a lot more that can be done. Take me through some of these specifics, some of the new tech that's being employed right now.
Donie O'Sullivan: Well, there's so many parts.
Leah Feiger: You're overwhelmed by this question.
Donie O'Sullivan: There's this whole idea of them trying to claim voter roles. There's this thing literally called Stalk the Vote. I think David probably knows it better than I do. There's all this stuff that Mike Lindell is pushing and promoting, which I'm trying to wrap my head around. There's stuff about requesting an absentee ballot but not opening it, and then showing up at your polling location and voting. Just all this stuff that is supposed to make our elections more secure, but in fact are just going to cause chaos.
David Gilbert: One of the things they're organizing around again is this Only Citizens Vote, which is this idea that there's going to be an influx of noncitizens. They're organizing to put up messages outside polling stations to tell people that, if you vote and you're not a citizen, then you will go to jail. These fear-mongering things that could dissuade a lot of people from voting, especially if they're unsure if they are registered, even if they are legitimately voting. They're planning a whole weeklong campaign around this in mid-September. Then they're going to be organizing around the actual vote itself. They're going to be monitoring around drop boxes. What strikes me about it, even following the stuff that happened in 2020 and 2022, the level of organization around this is at a completely new scale. They are incredibly well organized, incredibly well resourced. They have people across the country. They built this network over the course of the last four years that is now in every county, in every state across the US. They can call on people instantly if they know or they believe that something nefarious is happening. That is incredibly dangerous as well because, if something does happen on voting day, and there's these claims that a voting machine is doing something that looks weird, there's going to be a group of people that will instantly be activated. And therefore, be on the ground to do something. We just don't know what they'll do.
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Leah Feiger: Let's bring it back, for a moment, to the people that are pushing these things, because this is something that I've been thinking about for a while. Your documentary really made me think about this as well. How much of these claims of election conspiracies do you think are a bit of a grift? Throughout the doc, we see people hawking merchandise all over the place. Lindell and his pillows are front-and-center. It's, “The election was stolen. Also, use Patriot2024 to get 10 percent off.” We see influencers of all sorts with Trump bobbleheads, Trump poetry books.
Donie O'Sullivan: Yes.
Leah Feiger: You've talked to these people. Do you think they're real believers?
Donie O'Sullivan: I think it's a mix. I think Mike is a true believer. I think you could see, with some of these right-wing guys, that they know better. But they know this is a great grift, as you say. You can make a lot of money off this.
Leah Feiger: Oh, yeah.
Donie O'Sullivan: You can push everything. Then I think there's some people who it's half-and-half. People who might justifiably feel disillusioned with the system, or whatever, get into this world, finding meaning in it, finding community. Then they see, “Hey, I can start doing this myself too, and start making some money off it.” Just human nature then, I think, kicks in to say, “Well, why should I question this? Everybody here around me is so sure.”
Leah Feiger: Sure.
Donie O'Sullivan: “We're all so sure that this is fraudulent.” I think it is that mix. One thing I was also just going to mention is that I think what has been so corrosive about this 2020 election lie is that, if you can get people to buy into it, it really, truly does open a world of other conspiracy theories. It really is the rabbit hole. I give an example of actually, in our documentary previous to this one, we spoke to a guy, his name is Joe Black. He's in Colorado. He's a Trump supporter, believes the election was stolen, and whatnot. I actually met him in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl this year. You guys would remember the Taylor Swift conspiracy theories.
Leah Feiger: Oh, yeah.
Donie O'Sullivan: That, in some way, Taylor Swift was working with Travis Kelce, and vaccinated to rig the Super Bowl to help Joe Biden win.
Leah Feiger: It felt like they were reaching a little bit with that one.
Donie O'Sullivan: No, it felt like a reach. But then, I was sitting down with Joe, who's a normal guy, nice guy. I knew he believed the election stuff and these other things. But when it came to the Taylor Swift thing I was like, “Obviously you don't believe in that one?” He was like, “Well …”
Leah Feiger: Oh my gosh.
Donie O'Sullivan: What I thought was most insightful about it was that, when I said, “Look, if you think about all of the things, the conspiracy that would have to happen, for this in some way to be pulled off. That the NFL, and Taylor Swift, and Biden.” I was like, "One, Democrats could only wish to be that organized."
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Leah Feiger: In Nancy Pelosi's dreams, basically.
Donie O'Sullivan: Yeah. I said, “That would just be so difficult to pull off, this stunt.” He was like, “Well, they were able to steal the election.”
Leah Feiger: Right.
Donie O'Sullivan: “That's more complicated than anything else.” I think it speaks so much to the rot that is happening in trust in this country. Because we say election denialism all the time, we say election lies, but if you really think about what that means and what it means to Americans who are proud Americans, a lot of them really have been misled. It's a pretty dark place they've been led to.
Leah Feiger: On that note, let's take a quick break. When we're back, we're going to talk about what happens if Trump loses, and the threats that election workers around the country are already facing.
[break]Leah Feiger: Welcome back to WIRED Politics Lab. Donie, you mentioned Maricopa County, Arizona, earlier. In the last portion of your documentary, you interview Stephen Richer, the county recorder for Maricopa County. He's an interesting guy, he's a Republican, but he spent the last few years fighting really hard against election conspiracies. For many, it felt like he was on the front lines of this war against election denialism. But he just lost his primary in Arizona. What happens to Maricopa? How important are elected officials as barriers to conspiracy theories?
Donie O'Sullivan: Yeah. Look, I think this raises this other complicating factor here. Which is, one, we're pointing out that, in Maricopa, Stephen and others who were there will be overseeing this election.
Leah Feiger: Yeah.
Donie O'Sullivan: His term is up in January, I believe. But look, you are getting this situation where there are election deniers, election conspiracy theorists who are coming into roles that are overseeing elections across the country.
Leah Feiger: It's wild!
Donie O'Sullivan: Yeah.
Leah Feiger: That's bananas.
Donie O'Sullivan: As we talk about trust in the system, there's also this possibility that, if Trump wins, that you will have Democrats being able to point at certain counties, certain parts of the country to say, “Well, isn't there an election denial election official working here? Why should we trust the vote here?” There isn't this grand plan coming together, like there is on the right, on the Trump side of things.
Leah Feiger: Sure.
Donie O'Sullivan: But it just does show you that this doubt can spread.
Leah Feiger: What you're saying is that Democrats might become the ones pushing election conspiracies themselves.
Donie O'Sullivan: Yeah. I don't want to get into a false equivalency here.
Leah Feiger: Right.
Donie O'Sullivan: But certainly, this time around or next time around, also depending on who wins some secondary states races across the country.
Leah Feiger: Right.
Donie O'Sullivan: Again, it just points to this terrible picture of what is happening nationally in this country.
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David Gilbert: We saw it with the Trump shooting. We saw conspiracies spread on all sides.
Donie O'Sullivan: It was staged.
David Gilbert: Yeah. The lack of trust, it just has pervaded all aspects of society, not just one. It's a problem, it's a big problem, and it could get worse.
Donie O'Sullivan: I think it's also, I think the conspiracy theories about the attempted assassination of Trump is also just a reminder that this isn't as much a partisan issue as we want to maybe think it is. A lot of people always say, “Oh, why aren't you talking more about the conspiracy theories on the left, the conspiracy theories that Democrats are pushing?” Look, I think any reasonable person could see that, at a national level, national politics here, there is far more conspiracy theories being pushed—
Leah Feiger: Without a doubt.
Donie O'Sullivan: … by the Republican side than the Democrat side.
Leah Feiger: Without a doubt.
Donie O'Sullivan: That being said, I think that the case of the Trump attempted assassination tells us a lot. Because it means there's all these people saying, on the left, that Trump staged it in some way. There were these photoshopped images going around of the Secret Service agents around Trump, smiling as if they had pulled off this plan. Even one of my sophisticated, New York liberal friends said, “Well, wasn't he out golfing the next day? Wasn't he out golfing the next day without a bandage on his ear?”
Leah Feiger: The group chats were bad. The group chats were very bad that week.
Donie O'Sullivan: The image that was circulating that purported to be of him golfing the day after the shooting without an ear bandage, that was not from that day. I think Democrats can be very condescending about this. Look down their nose at, “Oh, these idiots. How do they believe this? How do they believe this?” Well, check yourself. See what you believe, and what you thought about, and what you read in the days and hours, and shared after the attempted assassination.
Leah Feiger: It also just says how primed this country is, and constituents are, to believe conspiracies.
Donie O'Sullivan: It's almost easier, it's more comforting if we can say, “Well, there is a plan.”
Leah Feiger: Are you saying that Americans are bad at dealing with traumatizing events? What are you talking about?
Donie O'Sullivan: What I'm saying, all people. So this doesn't come across as two Irish guys being like, “Oh, those Americans!” I'm a very proud dual American citizen, have been all my life, thank you very much. But I think this goes across the board. But you also saw that with Covid, too. It was easier for people to say, “Well, this was intentionally created and spread.” Rather than saying, “OK, this is something that's happening, we don't know how it's spreading and why,” et cetera, et cetera. People want to search for meaning. Sometimes that search for meaning and explanation, and answers leads you to think, “Well, no, that didn't just happen. There's been a plan for it.” I think for Democrats, it's like, rather than dealing with the reality that, yes, he was almost killed. It's like, “Well, no, it was never going to happen in the first place.”
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Leah Feiger: I guess this brings me back to the elected officials that are possibly the last barrier of defense for some of these conspiracies and for some of these constituencies. Election workers had a really, really difficult time in 2020 and in 2022, because of these conspiracies that we've been talking about. They've faced tons of harassment, serious threats of violence. What is it looking like for this year? How have we, as a society, not just been primed for conspiracies, but primed for more threats of violence and more harassment as a result?
Donie O'Sullivan: Same and worse.
Leah Feiger: Awesome. Love to hear that.
Donie O'Sullivan: I think it's hundreds, maybe thousands, but definitely hundreds of election officials, senior election officials across the country have left their jobs over the past few years. I've spoken to a lot of them. People who have been doing this job for years. It's a pretty thankless, boring job, a lot of the time.
Leah Feiger: Yeah, yeah.
Donie O'Sullivan: But people, they said people in their own community, their neighbors turned on them. I think we're in a very bad place there. Again, who would want to be an election official right now? Why would you sign yourself up to that, your family up to that? Especially in the states that really matter.
Leah Feiger: Right, right.
Donie O'Sullivan: The Arizonas and Georgias of the world, where you've seen what has happened to election workers.
David Gilbert: We've seen this institutional loss over the last four years as well, where people have just said, “No.” That vacuum has been, in a lot of cases, filled by a lot of people who are willing to do it. But sometimes, the reasons that they're willing to do it are not the best of reasons. It was recently in Fulton County, which is obviously the center of a lot of the 2020 conspiracies. There's an election board there. A Republican refused to certify the May primary election.
Leah Feiger: Right.
David Gilbert: It turns out that she's a key, or an administrator, of this network of election denial groups in her region. She's part of an election denial movement, but she's also a member of the Fulton County Election Board. It just shows that there are people who are firmly in the camp of elections don't work, and they're also the people who are administering the election. I think we're going to see a lot more of that come November, where a lot more people will refuse to certify votes. We saw a little bit of it in 2022, we're seeing a bit of it in the primaries. We may see a lot more of it in 2024.
Leah Feiger: Yeah. Talk to us a little bit about your previous conversations with Stephen Richer, who is in charge of Maricopa's elections. What can election workers, or secretaries of state, or county recorders be doing in this situation? Not only to deal with harassment and intimidation, but to make sure that these elections proceed as they need to.
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David Gilbert: Well, I think Stephen Richer's an interesting case because he attacked all these threats and disinformation head-on. He used Twitter really well to debunk conspiracies that were going around. Not everyone is either willing or capable to that in real time. He was very much a public figure. The fact that he was a Republican, I suppose, made it more interesting because it felt like he was attacking a lot of the people that were part of his own party. Similar with Bill Gates, who's also in Maricopa County. He was very public about pushing back against these conspiracies.
Leah Feiger: Also featured in the CNN documentary.
Donie O'Sullivan: Not the Microsoft guy.
Leah Feiger: Poor Bill Gates.
Donie O'Sullivan: I know.
David Gilbert: I know.
Leah Feiger: The one in Maricopa County.
Donie O'Sullivan: Yes.
Leah Feiger: No, there's a lot for these people to contend with.
David Gilbert: It's coming at them from all angles. I really don't know if Stephen Richer's tactics of being very public and outspoken about it were a good thing or a bad thing, because it didn't stop the threats. The threats continued.
Leah Feiger: Right.
David Gilbert: I think at one point, he called his offices a fortress, where he was working, because of the extra security that they had to put on around election time.
Donie O'Sullivan: Yeah.
David Gilbert: It probably made him more of a target, and he was willing to take that on. Now he lost his primary to someone who would not say that the 2020 election results were valid.
Leah Feiger: Sure.
David Gilbert: He also hasn't said publicly that they're stolen, so just so we're clear. But it's very hard to know what election officials should do. Should they just put their head down and continue working in the face of this tirade of abuse? Or should they stand up and fight back, like Richer did?
Donie O'Sullivan: I sometimes try and find a kernel of hope. Look, these people really are doing incredible work. It's because of them the system is still standing. I find a lot of their stories inspiring. But, I'm bringing it back down.
Leah Feiger: You had to.
Donie O'Sullivan: After Biden was inaugurated and Trump eventually left last time, people said, “Look, the system works. Congress, the courts, et cetera, et cetera, it worked. The system held.” I don't think that was as much a testament to the system of checks and balances, as much as it was I think it was really strained there. I don't know if the system can hold up against, as you were describing, just how sophisticated and organized it's going to be around this time.
Leah Feiger: This comes up a couple of times in the doc, and David and I have been discussing it for what feels like years at this point. But take us through what the people you talked to in the documentary said would happen if Trump loses? Let's talk about the end of all of this.
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Donie O'Sullivan: A lot of the people I've spoken to are saying what they said to me in October 2020, which is that the only way Trump could lose is if there's mass fraud, if it's stolen. People are very up-front about saying they think there will be violence, they think there will be civil war, this cannot stand. I was hearing a lot of that in the lead-up to 2020. In fact, I was just thinking this morning, October 2020, I was in a conference room in Scottsdale, Arizona. There was all these guys there. Obviously, the height of Covid. One guy grunted at me for wearing a mask indoors.
Leah Feiger: Sure.
Donie O'Sullivan: But there was all these guys talking about saying, “The only way Trump will lose this is if it's stolen.” It turned out, some of the guys in that room went on to January 6th. In fact, the guy who grunted at me was the Qanon Shaman.
Leah Feiger: Oh, fantastic.
Donie O'Sullivan: Before he became famous or infamous, depending on how you view him.
Leah Feiger: With a burgeoning political career in Arizona.
Donie O'Sullivan: Yes. Yeah, well, as it were. That's what we're hearing and that's what makes me most concerned. Obviously, look, there is a lot of hyperbole when it comes to talk about civil war and stuff in this country.
Leah Feiger: Yeah, for sure. But at a certain point …
Donie O'Sullivan: Then you can also see that a lot of these people do mean it. Most of the people in the room in 2020 in Arizona probably didn't go on to take part in violence on January 6th or anything else, but some of them did. It doesn't take a lot of people to cause this kind of chaos. I think that's another important thing. I was at the Capital on January 6th. A lot of the people who were there that day didn't take part in violence. They were standing on the lawn, they were standing outside. They believed the election was stolen or whatever, but they were not violent. But that crowd, that physical manifestation of the online mob, that allows for the real bad guys, the guys who want to do this stuff, that gives them cover, because they get the safety in numbers then. That is, again, what I'm concerned about this time. Whereas there's a lot of people I'll speak to who says, “Well, no, we don't condone violence. We think that Trump, if he loses, he should just accept that. But also, we understand why it might go that way, because the other side is so corrupt.”
Leah Feiger: It's not just, for lack of a better word, no-names pushing this as well. In your doc, correct me if I'm wrong, people like Tim Ballard of Underground Railroad and sexual abuse scandal fame are also pushing that civil war is the only possible thing that can happen if Trump loses.
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Donie O'Sullivan: Yeah. There's a lot of this rhetoric. Obviously, there's Steve Bannon War Room.
Leah Feiger: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Donie O'Sullivan: It's uncomfortable to hear it. Again, it's one of those things where it's hard to know how actionable it is, but there's plenty of people in this country that are primed for it.
David Gilbert: We now have these networks of activists at each county level. It's increasingly worrying, during my reporting, to see how those groups and more extremist groups, like militias, that there are increasing links between those two networks of people. I think we're unlikely to see something at a national level like January 6th again, but we could very likely see outbreaks on a very local level.
Leah Feiger: State houses.
David Gilbert: State houses. Even more local than that, down to the county level, where sheriffs get involved. We've seen cases in the past where fired sheriffs have tried to seize voting machines because they felt that something nefarious was happening. Now it hasn't happened yet, but that was four years ago, and a lot has happened in between to radicalize people. I think we could see something happening somewhere in the country, and that could ignite a spark that quickly spreads much farther.
Leah Feiger: OK. We're going to take a moment. When we're back, we're going to do Conspiracy of the Week.
[break]Leah Feiger: Welcome back to WIRED Politics Lab. It's time for Conspiracy of the Week, the portion of the podcast where I ask our lovely guests to bring their favorite conspiracies that they've heard recently, or that have been favorites for a long time. David, take us away. What do you have for us this week?
David Gilbert: This one made me laugh out loud at my desk this morning when I read it.
Leah Feiger: Promising.
David Gilbert: It takes quite a lot to do that, at this stage. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe I shouldn't have been laughing about it, because it's not really funny. This one is about Tim Walz, the running mate for Kamala Harris, who was announced yesterday. It's hard to keep up with timelines and things, but I think it was yesterday.
Leah Feiger: Announced on Monday. Tuesday.
David Gilbert: Announced this week. Yesterday, there was a big rally where he was there. His wife and Kamala Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, came on stage, and they all hugged and embraced each other. Tim Walz did this weird thing, where he shook his wife's hand, and then kind of hugged her. It was really awkward. Obviously, because it looked awkward, this has sparked the usual number of conspiracies. The first being that Tim Walz is actually gay, and his marriage is a sham because he hugged Doug Emhoff, and that was very much—
Leah Feiger: More natural?
David Gilbert: More natural, and fully embracing him. They've set it to music from Titanic, and everything.
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Leah Feiger: This is so good.
David Gilbert: Then it took a bit of a darker turn, this conspiracy, unfortunately.
Leah Feiger: Oh, no.
David Gilbert: I hadn't ever seen Gwen Walz before, but she does bear a bit of a resemblance to Hilary Clinton.
Leah Feiger: Because she's short and blond?
Donie O'Sullivan: It's the perm.
David Gilbert: I guess.
Leah Feiger: Guys.
David Gilbert: In conspiracy world, that means that this is actually not Gwen Walz, that this is actually Hilary Clinton. And that she has killed the real Gwen Walz. This is her secret way of getting back into the White House. And that, ultimately, she's going to kill everyone and take over as president.
Leah Feiger: I love this theory. How can you not love this theory? This has everything.
David Gilbert: It made me laugh.
Leah Feiger: This has body-snatchers. Oh, this is a good one.
David Gilbert: Yeah.
Leah Feiger: That was really good, David.
Donie O'Sullivan: I'm worried for David.
Leah Feiger: This is what he sees on the internet, every single day. Sometimes he logs on and he's like, “Did you see this?” I'm like, “Why? Why would I have seen this? In what universe?”
Donie O'Sullivan: Well, I'm not going to talk about JD Vance and the couch.
Leah Feiger: Yeah. Hit us with yours, Donie.
Donie O'Sullivan: It's not often you get to have an experience where you're with the subject of conspiracy theories. But, I work with Anderson Cooper at CNN. He a Vanderbilt. There's a whole Qanon world about him, et cetera. A lot of it is scary, and some of it's just absurd and funny. But yeah, sometimes when I meet people who are very down the rabbit hole, they'll ask me, “Oh, you're CNN? OK, yeah. Do you work with Anderson Cooper?” Yeah, I see him sometimes. I do stories on his show. “You've seen him in person?” Yeah. “Up close?” Yeah, I've been on a TV set with him. I've had at least one, maybe two people just ask me really seriously, “Can you see the mask? Can you see?”
Leah Feiger: No.
Donie O'Sullivan: Yeah, yeah. “Can you see the mask?”
Leah Feiger: No.
Donie O'Sullivan: “Because I can see it.” Yeah. I get that quite a bit. Obviously, I'm like, “Yeah, it's crazy. The mask …” No.
Leah Feiger: Wait. So what's the theory? Who is this?
Donie O'Sullivan: David would probably know better than me, in terms of what. There's this whole thing about people taking on other identities, and masks, and everything else. Some people believe … We did a doc last year on how some people believe that Trump is JFK Jr. in disguise, and all this sort of thing.
Leah Feiger: Right, right.
Donie O'Sullivan: It leads to a pretty dark place. But in that moment, of course, when somebody asks me in all sincerity, “Have you seen the mask?” Yeah. It's just an out-of-body experience almost, for me, in that I'm like, “Oh, wow. This really is just all the worlds colliding.”
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Leah Feiger: This is in there. Oh, that's incredible. I didn't realize that our theme this week was the body swappers here.
Donie O'Sullivan: Shape-shifters. I know, whatever.
Leah Feiger: Guys, thank you so much for joining us today. These were such good conspiracies. I think I'm going to have to call it a tie.
Donie O'Sullivan: Very good.
Leah Feiger: Yeah. Thematically, theme of the body-swappers. How could we not? Donie O'Sullivan's new documentary, MisinfoNation Part Two, airs on August 11 on CNN. Donie, thank you so much again for coming on.
Donie O'Sullivan: Thank you very much, guys, for having me.
Leah Feiger: David Gilbert, thank you so much as always.
David Gilbert: Yeah, it's been good fun.
Leah Feiger: Thanks so much for listening to WIRED Politics Lab. If you like what you heard today, make sure to follow the show and rate it on your podcast app of choice. We also have a newsletter, which MaKena Kelly writes each week. The link to the newsletter and the WIRED reporting we mentioned today are in the show notes. If you'd like to get in touch with us with any questions, comments, or show suggestions, please, please write to politicslab@WIRED.com. That's politicslab@WIRED.com. We're so excited to hear from you. WIRED Politics Lab is produced by Jake Harper. Pran Bandi is our studio engineer. Amar Lal mixed this episode. Stephanie Kariuki is our executive producer. Chris Bannon is global head of audio at Condé Nast. I'm your host, Leah Feiger. We'll be back in your feeds with a new episode next week.
