Amna Nawaz:
Very few, very few were interested in talking to us, particularly after they asked where we were from and we'd say the PBS NewsHour and they would say fake news and then the heckling would ensue. There were a couple of really wonderful people we met who at least said, you know, "yeah, sure, I'll talk to you" after we kind of chatted with them for a little bit and said, this is why we're here, we just want to talk to you and hear your story and understand why you're here. And so we ended up doing a few interviews, but mainly, especially as time went on and tensions started rising and you could just feel the atmosphere kind of change, suddenly, every interaction became much more hostile. And at one point we kind of got surrounded by a group that had gathered and were waiting to see, and this was the thing, people were just waiting, as Lisa said, there was no real intention behind their presence. They believed President Trump, when he said he was going to be out there with them and that rumor had been circulating, they're all saying, oh, "maybe he's going to show up soon, he said he was going to come soon." And as tensions kind of rose, we found ourselves surrounded by this one group where one couple said, "sure, we'll talk to you," first. And then all of a sudden they said, "why are you wearing a mask? Take that mask off. This is ridiculous." And I said, well, "I'm wearing a mask to protect myself and you." And they said, "well, who'd you vote for? Where are you from? You're fake news. No, I'm not going to talk to you unless you tell me where you're from." And then everyone else in the group and around them kind of starts to join in and the atmosphere just changed where it suddenly wasn't safe for us to be kind of mixing and mingling in the crowd. But also, to Lisa's point, I just want to say, when people, we heard about the breach, we saw folks rush up to the stairs and it was just this moment where you couldn't quite process what you were seeing because the Capitol Police basically stepped aside in a few instances and there were just suddenly hundreds of people occupying the stairs and trying to breach the doors on the side we were on, on the Senate side, having already breached the doors on the House side. And the people we were talking to, everything just kind of got elevated and suddenly the whole atmosphere changed, and the police started responding and there was tear gas and flash bangs and it just in an instant, it changed. You couldn't believe that you were standing on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol. And I said this to you on the day and it's resonated with me since, I have covered so many of these scenes, I've covered so many instances like this, elections abroad, unrest in other countries. This happened here. And for all the talk about how this doesn't happen in America, this isn't who we are. This happened here. It is who we are. And it's not everyone, but we have to be able to reckon with the fact that this is something that unfolded on our soil that's been unfolding, as Yamiche pointed out, for a long time, and it's here now.