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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Tuesday, January 6th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that is not very excited to see our foreign policy apparently decided by South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. Here he is on Air Force One on Sunday with President Donald Trump getting very excited about a new potential target of military action. 

[clip of Senator Lindsey Graham] You just wait for Cuba. Cuba is a communist dictatorship that’s killed priests and nuns. They’ve preyed on their own people. Their days are numbered. We’re going to wake up one day, I hope in ’26, in our backyard we’re going to have allies in these countries doing business with America, not narco terrorist dictators, killing Americans. This is a big frigging day and everybody in the world is thinking differently than they were just a few days ago because of what you did. 

Jane Coaston: He also had Trump sign a Make Iran Great Again hat for him, a photo of which he posted on Monday. Because everything’s coming up Lindsey. [music break] On today’s show, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth escalates his seditious beef with astronaut and known badass Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues giving up on controlling and preventing diseases. But let’s start with this day, five years ago, when supporters of President Trump, emboldened by his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, stormed the Capitol. Here is some footage of the insurrection released by the House Select Committee investigating January 6th back in 2022. [clip of people shouting plays] I was living in DC at the time, not far from the Capitol building. I will never forget the scenes from that day and from the weeks that followed. The National Guard sleeping in the Capitol complex, the National Mall surrounded by barricades and barbed wire. There was a pizza place nearby that provided free food to members of the National Guard stationed there. And so parts of Capitol Hill smelled like pizza all the time for months. And five years after all of that. After the horrifying violence and the deaths of multiple people, after the images that made so many of us feel like the world had, even in the midst of the pandemic, somehow gone more insane, Donald Trump as president, again. It feels like the people who stormed the Capitol got everything they could have wanted, but did they? More than 1,500 January 6th rioters received blanket pardons from Trump on his first day back in office. But dozens of those pardoned went on to commit more crimes, and others are furious that they haven’t received restitution for so-called, quote, “malicious prosecution.” Many of the groups that helped foment what happened five years ago have never regained the strength they had back then. And it seems to me that Trump himself in his second term has disappointed many of the people who backed his insurrection, including some of those willing to go to prison for him. So to talk more about January 6th and where the far right is now, I spoke to Will Sommer. He’s a senior reporter for the Bulwark who focuses on the far-right and conservative media. Will, welcome back to What a Day. 

Will Sommer: Hey, thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: So you were actually on the ground in D.C. to report on the January 6th Save America rally in 2021 that turned into what it turned into. What were you seeing and hearing online from different members of the far right ahead of that rally? 

Will Sommer: Yeah, I mean, I think there was, in retrospect, I wish I had seen it coming more. I mean there had been sort of a lead up, obviously there had been protests in DC and in after Trump lost the election, but before January 6th, you know, Proud Boys would fight with Antifa or other leftist protesters and someone would get stabbed, stuff like that. And I sort of thought that that was going to be the amount of violence on January 6th, um, even though, you know I was seeing posts about, well, we should occupy the federal buildings. You know, where are we all going to sleep? Well it’s, you know, it’s the people’s house. We should just rush these buildings. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, people talking about trying to get guns across the river. Like it is funny looking back and being like, oh, yeah, you probably you know, I lived in D.C. at that time. And I remember seeing people with like don’t tread on me flags coming in from Virginia. 

Will Sommer: Yeah. I mean, it was something that, uh, you know, in retrospect, in a way it felt like, Oh, of course it led up to this riot. Um, but then I, obviously when it started happening, I mean it was totally crazy. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, what was your experience like on the ground outside the capital once the marchers started getting really violent? 

Will Sommer: So I was on the East Lawn initially, and it really popped off at first on the West Lawn. Um and so but I was interviewing people, and you know a car would roll up, and they would think it was Mike Pence, and they would just be like, just calling for his death. They were going crazy. And I thought, you know, geez, like this is this is a lot of animosity. Um. And then I heard that they were fighting, they were the protesters were breaking through the police lines on the west side. I went over there. Um. At the time, you know, I had already was somewhat well known as a in terms of some people on the right didn’t like. I think if someone decided to target me that the police had better things to do. So I didn’t get too deep into it, but I was kind of roaming around on the West Lawn, I saw Nick Fuentes among other people, and it was just this like you know incredibly weird atmosphere of um you know how far could they go. I mean, obviously that was the climbing the scaffolding, all those iconic images. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, Nick Fuentes, who now has become a weirdly well-known white nationalist far-right activist who people keep arguing about. But uh I think that that actually gets me to some of the leaders of the groups involved in January 6th and where they are now. For example, Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the extremist group The Proud Boys, wasn’t actually at the Capitol on January 6th because he was arrested earlier that week carrying two gun magazines and he was banned from re-entering D.C. What has he been doing since Trump pardoned him last year? 

Will Sommer: Well, you know, he he suffered a real blow to his reputation when he was exposed as a federal informant um on unrelated uh non-January– 

Jane Coaston: As one might. 

Will Sommer: –6th matters.

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Will Sommer: Uh but in his past. And obviously, you know on the far right, you know they’re constantly accusing each other of being federal agents, federal provocateurs. And when it comes out that you actually did work for the feds, they you know that really hurts your image. On the other hand, you know he’s been bouncing back. He has a podcast, um like a lot of these people, I think, like everyone these days. Um, but the you know a lot of these groups, I think, after January 6th, people really felt that um sort of big in-person gatherings or protests were you know because many of them saw January 6th as a sort of a federal provocation or that they had somehow been entrapped. So I think in general outside of Trump rallies, people on the right are are less interested in what we used to see in the case of the Proud Boys as like these big kind of Proud Boy marches, things like that. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, I was curious because I think that after the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, there was talk that the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, whom we’ll ask about in a minute, they were kind of reactivated and they were going to be doing more stuff. But like, where has that been going and how active are the Proud Boys today outside of showing up at Trump rallies? 

Will Sommer: I mean, the Proud Boys are are active online. They have a kind of a whole universe. I mean Gavin McInnis, the proud boys founder, also the co-founder of Vice Magazine. Um. I mean he has kind of his broader Proud Boy’s media universe, but in terms of their real like political activism, I’m sure it’s going on, but it certainly is not where it was in 2017, 2018, when they were just sort of out there constantly clashing with people. On the other hand, a lot of this stuff happens in the summer. Uh and Trump is in office and I think that mollifies a lot of these people, they don’t feel like they have to go fight antifa um probably the biggest moment for them was the the the Portland drama last year where you know right media figures would get in scuffles outside of the ICE building and the person some of the proud boys went out and then kind of you know faced off with antifa but certainly I would say at least in a visible way the proud boys are sort of a shadow of what what they once were before. 

Jane Coaston: Trump also pardoned Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs, two leaders of the far-right militia group, the Oath Keepers, who we mentioned a little bit. Wired reported last year that Rhodes was attempting to relaunch the Oath Keepers, but that, quote, “former allies are unconvinced.” Why have the Oath Keepers not been more emboldened under the second Trump administration? 

Will Sommer: You know, I think the Oath Keepers, like Stewart Rhodes was a divisive leader, I guess I would say, even by the standards of of militia leadership. Um. You know this is a guy who, there were questions about his spending, I think he spent a lot of money on steaks, those sort of Oath Keepers who meant to you know be buying guns or building out the Oat Keepers. Um. And so this is, you know, these figures I think, like Enrique Tarrio, they kind of depend on a big moment and they sort of, they kind float around in the background until they have something you know like, for example, maybe another democratic administration uh that that will really galvanize them. And I think at the moment, I mean, they you know Republicans are in power, and so you know there are disappointments I think. There are things like the Epstein files not getting released. But you know there’s not really like a big moment for them to to protest around or to somehow plot some some kind of scheme. 

Jane Coaston: I’m glad you mentioned the Epstein files, because I think that that seems like a piece of why a lot of the people who I think were most engaged in January 6th and everything coming around there, they seem pretty disappointed with Trump 2.0. I mean, it’s not just former Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. A lot of people seem very disappointed with what the second Trump administration has resulted in. What’s your sense? Like, what did they think they were going to get and what have they not received? 

Will Sommer: Well, I mean, since we’re talking about January 6th, I mean, there have been all kinds of disappointments, I would say. And you mentioned that, well, I think probably the biggest one is releasing the Epstein files. But in the case of January 6th people in particular, I, mean, I think they thought they were going to be heroes. And in fairness to them, they had really committed their lives to Trump. They had put a lot on the line. They’d been to prison in a lot of cases. Uh. And, you know, on one hand, they did get pardoned or they had their sentences commuted, which was is pretty good. But I mean I think they there are lawsuits for reparations for January 6th people that aren’t going anywhere. I mean, a lot of them, I mean frankly, I think already had kind of marginal lives beforehand. And rather than being really celebrated, they find themselves back where they were, except, you know, they went to prison for a year or two. And so their lives I think are in many ways worse. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, and to your point, it was interesting to me how many of the people who were pardoned because of January 6th then found themselves in legal trouble again for other stuff. 

Will Sommer: Yes, absolutely. I mean, we’ve seen people, um, you know, in trouble for, for threatening officials for, uh, child sex crimes. It’s funny because obviously Donald Trump, you know unleashed these people back on the public again. Uh, and you know I, I don’t think there’s really been a reckoning, uh from the Trump administration with that fact. 

Jane Coaston: I’m curious, and obviously this is very recent, but what have you been seeing about how these groups are responding to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the possibility of indefinite U.S. involvement in Venezuela? Something that like, I seem to remember that there was this whole thing about like not getting into foreign wars and America first, but like it seems like MAGA media has like completely pushed that aside. Has the far right? 

Will Sommer: This has been really striking to me as well. As you said, I mean a lot of these people pitch themselves as America first, people like Nick Fuentes, really like the faithful white nationalists. They’re isolationists. They don’t want these forever wars in the Middle East. Um. They say all these wars are on behalf of Israel, all this stuff. Um. But in this case, they have really people like Alex Jones, Nick Fuentes, Gavin McInnes, the Proud Boys founder. They’ve really, you know for whatever reason, they love this war. Um. And I think it’s because they’re kind of recasting America first as not sort of like, well, we sort of look inward and focus on building up our own country. Don’t get in these quagmire wars, but instead they’re recasting it as sort of like America is a warlord country and we take whatever we want in that way being America first. Well, this country has all the oil, all this, all these mineral resources. Why shouldn’t we dominate them is sort of the way they’ve recast it. 

Jane Coaston: What will you be watching most closely on the far right in 2026? 

Will Sommer: Well, I think, you know, we’re entering this world where Donald Trump is increasingly looking like a lame duck. And so I think we’re going to see people look beyond Trump. And once that starts happening, I mean, there’s going to be a lot of, of knife fighting on the right, whether it’s who’s to blame if Democrats retake Congress in 2026 or sort of jockeying among people um for 2028. I mean in late December, we saw the, the turning point USA conference where people like Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro were tearing into each other. Tucker Carlson said this is sort of a proxy fight about J.D. Vance, because I’m friends with J.D. Vance. So I think it’s going to be, you know, 2025 was like a really ugly year in right wing media. There was, after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, there was this real power vacuum. Um. And I think that’s really only going to get amped up this year. 

Jane Coaston: Will, as always, thank you so much for joining me. 

Will Sommer: Thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Will Sommer, a senior reporter for The Bulwark. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of Senator Chris Murphy] There’s still been no briefing for the United States Senate. Um. They are sort of hiding their intentions. They fired the press at the Pentagon. They aren’t briefing members of Congress. But Donald Trump is telling the American people that it’s about the oil. Um. And there’s no secret that there’s a very cozy relationship between Trump and the oil industry. 

Jane Coaston: Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told What a Day’s Matt Berg that this weekend’s military operation in Venezuela doesn’t appear to be about drugs, despite the charges against the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores appeared in court for the first time Monday. When asked for his plea, he spoke through a courtroom interpreter, saying, quote, “I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country.” Flores also pleaded not guilty. Back in Venezuela, Maduro’s number two, Delcy Rodríguez, was sworn in as the country’s interim president. And even though the U.S. supported her, she’s starting on thin ice. President Trump told the Atlantic, quote, “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” So that’s promising. The Senate is expected to vote this week on another war powers resolution that would block the president from future military operations in Venezuela. But Murphy said he doesn’t think the president really cares about getting congressional approval. 

[clip of Senator Chris Murphy] Even if that vote were to pass, it’s probably likely that he’d ignore it. And this is what Republicans need to think about is that, um I think it’s really hard to put this genie back in the bottle. If a president just doesn’t believe that the constitution applies, that the law applies, and he can just spend money any way he wants, use the judicial system any way he wants. Use the American military any way he wants. I don’t know why a future democratic president wouldn’t take advantage of that space just like Donald Trump has. So Republicans are going to rue the day um that they set this machine in motion. 

Jane Coaston: I think the rest of us are already there. 

[clip of lawmaker number one] Like us, you all swore an oath. 

[clip of lawmaker number two] To protect and defend this Constitution. 

[clip of lawmaker number three] Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad. 

[clip of lawmaker number four] But from right here at home. 

[clip of Senator Mark Kelly] Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. 

Jane Coaston: Back in November, Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly appeared alongside five other lawmakers with military or intelligence backgrounds, urging active-duty service members to remember their legal obligation to reject unlawful orders. Secretary of War/little boy Pete Hegseth didn’t like it then and he doesn’t like it now. In a Twitter post Monday, Hegseth said the Pentagon initiated an administrative review of Kelly that could affect the retired Navy pilot’s rank and pension benefits. In the same post, Hegseth denounced the video as, quote, “seditious.” Senator Kelly spoke to Pod Save America after Hegseth censured him on Monday and explained why he stands behind the message of the video. 

[clip of Senator Mark Kelly] That’s all we were trying to do is remind members of the military because we have a president who has talked about killing the family members of terrorists, family members. That means women and children. He has talked about shooting US citizens, protesters in the legs. He’s talked about sending troops into US cities to use those US cities as training grounds, which means you’re going to use US citizens for training for the US military. 

Jane Coaston: Kelly’s legal team argued in November that the senator was restating a basic tenet of military law. They also pointed out that Hegseth himself previously made similar remarks about the duty of service members to refuse illegal commands. Like these comments he made in 2016 at the right-leaning Liberty Forum of Silicon Valley. 

[clip of Pete Hegseth] I do think there have to be consequences for abject war crimes. If you’re doing something that is just completely unlawful and uh and ruthless, then there is a consequence for that. That’s why the military said it won’t follow unlawful orders from their commander in chief. There’s a standard. There’s an ethos. 

Jane Coaston: So, when Pete Hegseth says service members should refuse illegal orders, that’s ethos. But when Mark Kelly says it, that’s sedition. Cool, cool, cool. 

[clip of Tim Walz] In September, I announced that I would seek a historic third term as Minnesota’s governor, and I have every confidence that if I gave it my all, we would win the race. But as I reflect on this moment with my family and my team over the holidays, I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all. Every minute that I spend defending my own political interest would be a minute I can spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who want to prey on our differences. 

Jane Coaston: Minnesota Democratic governor and former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz announced he’s dropping his re-election bid Monday. The decision comes after weeks of mounting scrutiny over his handling of the state’s welfare fraud scandal. President Trump himself has repeatedly used it to make racist comments about Somali immigrants, as many of those charged in the scandal are of Somali descent. Right now, a lot of Republicans have announced they’re running, including a few state congresspeople and major Trump supporter Mike Lindell, aka the MyPillowGuy. The most prominent Democrat who’s considered a bid for the governor’s mansion is Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. The New York Times reported that they even met ahead of Walz’s announcement and she confirmed her interest in the position. But at the time of our recording Monday evening, all she’s done so far is commend Walz’s decision on Twitter. Interesting. The Trump administration announced a major overhaul to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s childhood vaccine schedule on Monday. It now says all American kids should get immunized against only 11 diseases, down from 18, according to the White House. Many shots that were universally recommended, like rotavirus, COVID-19, meningitis, hepatitis A, hepatitus B, and the flu, now need to be given through, quote, “shared clinical decision making,” which is basically just talking to your doctor. The vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus or RSV is also now recommended only for high-risk groups. These changes were made after President Trump asked the Department of Health and Human Services to look at the childhood vaccination guidelines of other developed nations like Denmark and Japan and consider updating the US guidelines accordingly, because the US is just like Denmark and Japan. So let’s close this update with a friendly and desperate reminder. The American Academy of Pediatrics has its own immunization schedule that’s being recommended by doctors, and please get your kids vaccinated because we don’t live in Denmark. And that’s the news. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, celebrate the entrance of Nancy Drew and Betty Boop into the public domain, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how on New Year’s Day, both fictional characters reached the limit of their 95-year long US copyright, and now creators can use and repurpose them without asking for permission, like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston. And you are not ready for my gritty, hyper-violent Nancy Drew graphic novel. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Emily Fohr and Chris Allport. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Ethan Oberman, Greg Walters, and Matt Berg. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdock and Jordan Cantor. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]

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