- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by Delta Dental of New Jersey.

Everyone deserves a healthy smile.

Wells Fargo.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

Keep getting better.

PSEG Foundation.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Working for a more a healthier, more equitable New Jersey.

PSE&G, powering progress.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

And by The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey Globe.

And by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

Part of the USA Today Network.

- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The way we change Presidents in this country is by voting.

- A quartet is already a jawn, it’s just The New Jawn.

- January 6th was not some sort of violent, crazy outlier.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I mean what other country sends comedians over to embedded military to make them feel better.

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

_ It’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - Hi everyone.

Steve Adubado with my colleague Jacqui Tricarico, special correspondent here on "One-on-One," also the executive producer of "Think Tank" and Co-Anchor and Executive Producer of "Remember Them."

She has so many titles 'cause she does a lot.

Hey Jacqui, let's tee up this interview that I did, I did an in-depth interview with Elle Reeve, who's the author of this powerful, important, compelling book called "Black Pill, How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society and Capture American Politics."

You watched the interview.

Elle Reeve is a special correspondent for CNN.

She has won a Peabody, she's won a whole range of awards, but she was there in Charlottesville, there on January 6th and has been trying to understand who these folks are who go to these rallies and have come to believe that they have a right to be violent and do whatever for some greater cause.

Is that a good description of it?

- Yeah, and a few things that I took away from that is she talked about being the most famous person in amongst the worst people and really immersing herself in these very dangerous situations, where a lot of the time, she's being looked at as the enemy, but she talks about using the camera-- - Because she's in the media?

- Right, because she's in the media, because she's with CNN, and she's, we're talking about, you know, white nationalists, mostly men, who see her views and those views as opposing to what they believe.

And she talks about the camera though, and how she uses that as a tool, really, to keep her safe.

They see that camera and they think, "Oh, I'm gonna use this.

I wanna utilize this to get my message out."

It doesn't matter who it's coming from, they're using it to get their message out.

And, you know, you talked very much in depth about those two situations that she was in, those two major events, Charlottesville and January 6th and just her perspective, from both of them and what those times were like for her as a journalist, but also her as a woman.

- Yeah.

she really wanted to understand.

She got in these chats, these deep, into these chats where people are talking to each other and she said, "There are people," and you'll check it out in the interview from Elle Reeve, she said, there are people who you would never think would go down this deep into this rabbit hole of believing in conspiracy theories and get involved in events like Charlottesville and January 6th and attack the capitol.

And again, she was only feet, just a few feet away from Heather Heyer who was killed in that Charlottesville 2017 "Unite the Right" rally.

She was right there next to her.

And she talked in detail and they interviewed Jacqui about how horrible it was to see her killed by that car that ran through the crowd.

Powerful stuff.

We do journalism, but she does a different kind.

She's right in there.

- That's right.

And you know, she talks about, too, when you talk about online, that blurring the lines between online communities and real life communities.

This whole idea of what we see and what we do online, the misinformation that we're fed.

How are we fact checking?

Who's fact checking?

How are people getting information?

All that, and some other topics that you delve into with her.

- On behalf of Jacqui, myself, and our entire team, Elle Reeve, "Black Pill," important book, check it out.

(upbeat music) - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

This program is dedicated to a complex, important, and little understood topic, and our guest is the perfect person to have.

She is Elle Reeve, who's the author of "Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics."

Elle is a correspondent with CNN and has won an Emmy, a Peabody, and she does really important work.

Good to see you, Elle, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thanks so much for having me.

- "Black Pill," the title.

- Yeah.

- Comes from where?

- Well, if you've heard of the red pill, the black pill is worse, that's the short answer.

The red pill, it comes from "The Matrix", right?

You take the red pill and find out the horrible reality that we're controlled by machines.

Blue pill, you go back to the illusion.

This has become a metaphor for adopting right-wing views or further that, like, stripping yourself from the illusion that all people are created equal.

From that, there's many different pills that have taken hold on the internet, but the black pill is this nihilism that society's completely broken, morally corrupt, and it's going to collapse.

And so you can and should do your part to help hasten that collapse, because what comes after will be a golden age.

- So, we are taping this program on the 17th of October before a historically significant, important presidential election.

We don't know who will win that election.

We also don't know what will happen after whomever wins on election day or the days after, how the transition takes place or does not.

That being said, one of the things, Elle, that caused me to want to have our producers track you down and book you, in addition to your appearances on CNN, is the fact that in your work, what I'm really struck by, and I wanna start with January 6th.

The video that I have seen, that millions of people have seen, of you on January 6.

Describe why you were there as a journalist, what you saw, and how it's connected to the powerful message of this book, please.

- Well, the main reason, I got there from one man, JR Majewski.

He was a regular guy, you know, cargo shorts, beanie, just like a regular dude who loved Trump.

And I had been in touch with him from before the election, and I watched online as he slowly adopted this greater apocalyptic thinking that the election had been stolen, that there was something that had to be done.

He started fundraising online to bring some 60 people to January 6th in Washington DC.

He had an open chat so, I joined it and I watched inside as these people talked themselves into violent ideas.

You know, it started as self-defense.

They imagined Antifa was gonna come and beat them up.

So, they needed to have self-defense weapons available to protect themselves.

So, it's just this increasing apocalyptic thinking all running towards one singular event that would happen in person, where these people felt like they would all come together, meet their real friends that they met on the internet and become part of history.

It was a repeat of what I'd seen in Charlottesville, the same kind of internet fury building up towards one singular event, but it was a much bigger crowd.

Because instead of white nationalism, it was this pro-Trump, American and their idea of patriotism.

- But hold on, Elle, and we'll talk about, you weren't that far away from Heather Heyer, who in fact was killed in 2017.

- Correct.

- In Charlottesville.

And we'll talk about that connection in a moment.

But you've used the word apocalyptic several times.

- Yeah.

- Operationalize that word, please.

- Well, the messages they were sending each other are truly, like, "We are coming towards revelation, like, all will be revealed, like, this is the one big moment, the storm is coming."

Many people I spoke to, they would look like just regular people, like these were people with jobs, these are not marginalized people, talking about how there needed to be military tribunals to bring justice.

- To whom?

Tribunal-- - To Democrats.

Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, members of the military that they thought hadn't done what Trump wanted.

- Mike Pence, Mike Pence?

- Well, later.

Yes.

- Later.

- Yeah.

- So, I wanna be clear.

So, this apocalyptic view, on one hand they were getting, what you were following as you were getting ready to go to January 6th.

- Yeah.

- Was that they were gonna be on the other end of violence and had to protect themselves.

- That's right.

- But now as you're talking about it, they become the aggressors and seeking out others for retribution.

Do I have that wrong?

- That's not how they would tell themselves that.

That's not how they would explain it to themselves.

But yes.

That's why self-defense is so important.

Because your average person doesn't wanna do violence to another human being, right?

So this is how I've watched over and over again in chat rooms, that people talk themselves into violence.

They give themselves permission to do violence, that their enemies are absolutely without any morals.

That they'll hit old people, that they'll hurt children.

You know, like, they talk themselves into, they're going into battle against a great evil.

- And this is on the internet you see this happening.

- Yeah, so in Jan 6, I was following this in a Telegram channel, - Disproportionately men?

- No.

In Charlottesville, yes.

Jan 6, no.

Many, many women were into this.

- Okay, so help us understand this.

Why do you think more of a white male, disproportionately white male thing in Charlottesville and then January 6, a combination of men and women?

What do you think evolved in those years?

- White nationalism has been with America for a very long time, of course, but about 10 years ago, it became very influenced by involuntary celibate culture, incels, these guys who are like political virgins.

You know, they're angry at the world, they're willing to do violence for that.

So it became very, very misogynistic.

Very, very difficult for women to be involved in white nationalism.

So it is mostly an all male movement.

There were a few women in there, but they have told me how horrible it was for them.

QAnon and the sort of broader, kind of apocalyptic type of MAGA movement isn't like that, right?

It's built around protecting children.

That's something many, many more people can get behind and particularly women can get behind.

- Were you at risk physically of harm?

- Yes.

- Charlottesville and/or, if you will, January 6?

Because you're there as a journalist.

You're an enemy of the people according to some folks in this movement.

And you're out there asking questions and you couldn't have be seen as friendly.

- No.

So in Charlottesville, a lot of those white nationalist guys knew me.

I was kinda like a meme to them.

Not really a person.

- How would they know you?

- My previous reporting.

I mean, once I did all this reporting, these are like internet obsessives, right?

They've, like, researched everything I've ever done, who I've dated, where I'm from.

- How would they know that?

- Just, like, Googling.

Going deep, many, many pages, like, page 10 of Google.

And probably some other like, research methods.

So they would shout things at me.

- What would they, I'm sorry to interrupt.

Go ahead.

They'd shout things like... - So they knew me, but the camera is kind of protective in that situation.

'Cause they wanna be on camera.

They want people to know what they've done.

They were proud of themselves.

So it was scary, it was intimidating.

But no one threatened me physically in the moment.

In January 6, there was a moment after they tried to, I mean, they'd broken into the Capitol, police were pushing them back.

When a protest isn't successful in that way, there's, like, all this built up energy and they expend it towards something, often at the press, right?

So this woman had a bullhorn and she got people to circle up around us.

She was shouting, "You're a traitor.

You probably went to college."

Got these people to circle up around us, these men.

And, you know, usually if you sustain eye contact with one person, you can kind of, like, prevent them from doing violence to you.

But it's too many people.

And finally we had to leave and as I turned and walk away, this man threw a glass bottle at me and it shattered right up my heels.

Which I consider a very cowardly act because my back was turned.

So I ran after him, like, filming him, like, "Are you proud of yourself?

Say your name, say your name.

Like, be proud of what you've done."

Wouldn't do it.

And all these people walking around him were like, "Don't cancel him.

He's probably a family man."

- Don't cancel him?

- Don't cancel him.

- But no consequences, and no consequence should come to him for throwing that bottle at you with your back turned?

- Yeah, they were defending him.

- Okay, so-- - The camera is powerful.

The camera is very powerful.

- What do you mean by that, Elle?

what do you mean by that?

- It's protective.

- It's powerful.

- You know, a lot of people in the back of their minds, they don't wanna commit a felony on camera, one.

Two-- - A lot of people committed a felony on camera, both in Charlottesville and January 6th.

- That's true.

That's true.

But I'm telling you, you weed out some of those people.

Two, and this is how I got people to talk to me, is they want to be part of history.

So I would go up to 'em and say like, "Even though I'm, like, the enemy," like, saying I'm from CNN was like showing devil horns, right?

But I would say, "Tell me what happened for history."

And those were magic words that just would unlock.

I mean, a guy told me how he pushed through a police line and was maced and he later pled guilty and was sentenced to prison - For January 6th?

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- Elle, let me ask you this.

If the internet were not the internet, if social media were not what social media has become, do you believe these events, this movement, this poison society that you talk about in the subtitle of the book, do you think it would even be remotely possible to this degree?

- No, no.

- Because?

- Well, I interviewed Jeff Scoop, who ran a neo-Nazi movement for almost three decades.

And he started out when he was 18 with a fascination with Nazis.

Really hard for him to find neo-Nazis.

He found an academic book in the library.

It had a reference page in the back that had all the groups and their addresses that had been interviewed.

So he wrote letters to them one by one.

And they had old materials.

They took forever to get back to him.

Like, he had to work very hard to join that movement.

And now it can just wash over you on Twitter.

You can try it out anonymously with no consequence.

So I wanna ask you about this, radicalized youth.

There are some younger people that I know who are the grown children of very close friends of mine who I'm sure see the world in a very different way that you do, than I do, than many others do.

And I am concerned that they've become radicalized, meaning you just cannot talk to them because they are convinced of a lot of what you described folks see, that media is the enemy, Democrats are the enemy.

And there's a lot of vitriol and a lot of hate and a lot of anger.

How the heck, A, does that happen with younger people, and, B, can we even talk to them?

- Yeah, I think the number one thing you can do is not stop talking to them.

I've talked to deradicalization people who say-- - What's that?

What's deradicalization?

- They're people who try to pull people out of conspiracy theories, extremist movements.

And it's very difficult because there are inequalities in the world, there are vast gaps between the rich and the poor.

There is Jeffrey Epstein, real guy.

Sean Combs, real person, that are accused of real bad acts.

So you have to acknowledge that's real and still engage with them so they don't feel like society is just hopelessly and morally bankrupt.

That there is something they can do.

You can now with, like, white nationalists and those types, you can try to go study for study with them, but I think appealing to common sense works a lot better.

- How much is-- - You have to talk to them like they're smart.

- I apologize for stepping on on that, Elle.

How much is race involved here?

- Well, a lot.

A lot.

You know, you don't actually have to work that hard to find elements of racism in pop culture.

- Is it neo-Nazism?

- Well, that's like the planting of the seed.

And the way neo-Nazis will appeal to these guys.

They'll say, "Well, you're rational, you're logical, you're smart.

Why aren't you at the top of society?

Why are you always being yelled at?

Why don't women like you more?

Haven't you always wondered, haven't you always suspected that maybe you are smarter than," like, if this is a white person, "That you're smarter than people of color, smarter than Black people, right?"

And they'll portray this as an appeal to reason.

It's actually appeal to bias, you know?

But it's very important to them to create the aesthetic that white men are the logical Spock-like creatures that should be at the top of society and the rest of us are hysterical lunatics.

- As I've watched you on CNN and read your writing, and this is the book "Black Pill," I've often wondered how this has affected you, forget about as a journalist and politically, but as a human being.

Because this book also starts out with Elle describing how and where she grew up and the neighbor that she grew up around, who apparently reminded her of some of the folks who ran into in Charlottesville and January 6.

Is that a fair description?

- Oh yeah.

- Who scared the heck out of you and your family.

Okay.

How do you believe your work has impacted you as a human being?

- Well, I've gotten really good at suppressing my feelings.

So I can kind of point to two moments, that it hit me very emotionally.

So in Charlottesville when Heather Heyer was killed, there was the sound of-- - Tell everyone who Heather Heyer was and how she was killed with that car going through... - Heather Heyer was an anti-racist protestor who was marching downtown to show, like, the city of Charlottesville does not believe in what these alt-right guys were marching for.

She was marching downtown and a car drove through the crowd, hit another car, plowed into a lot of people.

Many, many people were injured and she was killed.

And I was right on the corner.

Just because it was so hot that day and we're just getting some shade in a doorway.

And the sound of the steel hitting human bodies was absolutely horrible.

And if you watch the documentary I did, you can hear I almost start crying trying to talk about that.

In that moment, that sound is replaying over and over in my mind, but I cannot remember it anymore.

- Why?

- Like, I don't know.

Like, my mind has just put that in, like a sarcophagus, just like Chernobyl to protect the rest of me from it.

Likewise, in Jan 6, there was one moment where all this crowd there was trying to go up the stairs into the Capitol and you could just feel the electricity of the crowd.

Like, everyone is kind of like a maniacal glee, like, enraged glee, I just had never felt anything like it.

And I was standing on this wall as people were climbing over trying to get in, and that's the moment that I could feel what this meant for our country.

- What does it mean?

For those who say, "You are making too much of January 6, There are good people on both sides," as Donald Trump said in Charlottesville, that there are just other points of view about this, Elle, and yours is just one.

- Sure, that's true.

But I was there.

- Why should it matter to the rest of us?

Why should all this matter to the rest of us?

- January 6, in that moment, it's actually kind of, it's my job to have words to describe these things and I do struggle, but it was a humiliation of our democracy in front of the world.

I have watched many documentaries about the collapse of communism.

I've seen that scene played out in Bucharest or in the former Yugoslavia.

And to see it in America where we present ourselves as the beacon of democracy, human rights, rule of law.

I mean, it was humiliating.

It was a tragedy, right?

And I feel that in the moment, even as I can also feel the pull of the emotion of the crowd.

Yeah, I mean, I've traveled around the world.

I've been to China and the Philippines and Romania, and we actually have a lot of problems in America, but we have a good thing going and I don't wanna see it fall apart.

- How worried are you for the future of our country?

- I feel like we're gonna make it through this, but good people have to take action.

I don't think it's fated.

There are a lot of bad actors out there and there are a lot of people who will follow them.

- This is not about Democrats and Republicans, is it?

- No.

No, absolutely not.

I talked to many hardcore Trump supporters who think January 6th was a bad thing.

And they don't blame Donald Trump for it.

And that's a little bit difficult for me to square.

But I do think it's important that they think January 6th was bad and that the people have should not have raided the Capitol.

- You're hopeful.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Elle Reeve is the author of a compelling book, the documentary you mentioned, Elle, we'll put up whatever information we need to put up.

But what is the documentary and how do people access it?

- Well, it's easy if you just search YouTube for, "Vice Charlottesville."

It's called "Charlottesville: Race and Terror."

- Elle Reeve is the author of "Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics."

Elle, cannot thank you enough for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thanks so much.

It was really fun talking to you.

- I'm Steve Adubato, that's Elle Reeve.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by Delta Dental of New Jersey.

Wells Fargo.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

PSEG Foundation.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

PSE&G, The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

And by The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey Globe.

And by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

- If you register as an organ donor, you have the potential of saving up to eight lives.

- My neighbor passed away.

His eyes were actually donated and that person now can see.

- Not only can you save a life, but if something should happen to me and I'm no longer here, I know that in some small part I'll live on in someone else.

- Say yes, save lives.

- Say yes, save lives.

- Say yes, save lives.

- Be an organ and tissue donor.