DONALD TRUMP: This election was stolen from you, from me and from the country.You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.
AMNA NAWAZ: What was incredibly shocking to me was the number of Republicans and lawmakers who, quote-unquote, should know better, who were encouraging the president, who were standing by him.
JELANI COBB: Everything had led to a moment wherein Trump’s people were completely unmotivated to accept anything other than unqualified victory as valid.
PAUL GOSAR: I rise to object to the counting of the electoral ballots from Arizona.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: The Republican party is the party of Trump.
MIKE PENCE: Is the objection signed by a senator?
PAUL GOSAR: Yes, it is.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH, Host: FRONTLINE’s season premiere, Lies, Politics and Democracy documents critical moments that have profoundly changed and challenged America over the past seven years. Drawing on interviews with more than 30 former government officials, political journalists and experts, the film examines threats to our democracy.
TIM ALBERTA: The erosion of confidence in our elections is an existential crisis for the United States of America.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH, Host: I’m Raney Aronson Rath, editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE, and this is the FRONTLINE Dispatch.
Last week, Lies, Politics and Democracy filmmaker, and veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk joined me for a Q and A event with FRONTLINE subscribers, and a special live recording of the Dispatch.
If you want to hear about about future events with our filmmakers, sign up for our newsletter at frontline-dot-org.
Here’s a lightly edited recording of my conversation with Michael Kirk, including some important questions from our virtual audience. I hope you find it as relevant and thought provoking as I did.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Hello, everyone. Welcome and thank you for joining our virtual conversation, which is also serving as our first live podcast recording of The FRONTLINE Dispatch. I'd love to welcome Michael Kirk. Thank you for joining me.
MICHAEL KIRK: It's a real pleasure to be here, Raney, always great to see you, even if virtually.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: I know really it's always virtual these days, but we're, we're getting back together. So, Mike, I, I wanna start with the fact of the body of work that you have behind you here to draw on. So, talk about the, the longitudinal look that you decided to take and how many films and, um, information and reporting had gone into that before we even decided this was the next one for you.
MICHAEL KIRK: I think we made 15 films about the Trump administration in one form or another. Uh, the Steve Bannon story we did was a full film, but it was really about the Trump administration. And along the way, as we were doing them, whether it was the Mueller report or all of them, we, uh, we always were keeping track of what the Republican party was doing, what the G O P was actually doing in saying, where were the leaders, uh, where was Paul Ryan? Where was Mitch McConnell? Uh, what was going on with Lindsay Graham? We watched them as they sort of, even during the campaign, as you recall, we made the, the Choice, the film about the, the two candidates who ran for the presidency in 2016. So we were watching the party, uh, mostly because we really believed there were probably guardrails they had control of, and that at some moment they would snap this different kind of Republican. He wasn't even really a Republican until the campaign, this different kind of Republican into place. And we'd have a more or less untraditional, but certainly a tremendously interesting president, but he would not be the president he turned out to be.
So for all those years, we've been gathering string, putting it aside, preparing the idea that maybe someday we would do the big, uh, G O P Donald Trump story. And you presented us with the idea of doing it in, uh, in relation to the, the state of democracy in America at the end of that time. So it all kind of came together just about, right for us about six or eight months ago.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: So with this idea of democracy in mind, you have a massive amount of material, anecdotes stories, reporting to draw. One of the most interesting things about you is your process of elimination. So how did you manage that? Let's just take me through some of the first decisions you had to make.
MICHAEL KIRK: it, it it's so huge. Of course, the first decision is where do you start? That's often easy because we have a standard rule of the road, which is chronology is our friend. So if we start at the beginning, we'll, uh, we'll be able to just sort of follow our noses and, and really look for inflection points. My co-producer and co-writer Mike Wiser, who is, uh, the closest thing to a living television genius. If that's not an oxymoron, it's, uh, his task to kind of provide a logic. For all the events that happened against a kind of bigger idea, whatever the big idea is. And the whole film is designed to head in that direction in a series of, in this film's case, um, four to six to eight minute, little, little scene sequences that tell a different part of the story that when you watch it, and they're all, they're often scenes that people know about.
Uh, but they've forgotten about they've forgotten the details of it, or when applied to the lens of what about democracy? What about the rise of authoritarianism? What about the role of McConnell or Ryan or McCarthy or others, uh, in the, in the telling of the story, suddenly things you think, you know, or things we think we've had. Sometimes things we've made in other films be take on a whole new life, direction and sense of meaning. So the task was that stack 'em up? How many of them can you keep? How many of them can you not keep? And most importantly, what's the surprise in almost every one of them that you can deliver.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: I mean, one of the first surprises was the scene of how this has been a tactic all along, um, when you lose, you win. So talk to me about that this idea of taking reality and just turning it on its head.
MICHAEL KIRK: Anytime you, you start a film, it's a big challenge. You, you, what we call it the cold open. Well, in this case, it wasn't a cold open. There was another cold
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Another one that we'll get to.
MICHAEL KIRK: It was a little surprising, but in this case, uh, I, I, I liked it and, and Wiser liked it because it was, it was something that even though it was Ted Cruz, you know, Ted Cruz, my God, you gotta start a movie with Ted Cruz? Uh, you don't even bring Donald Trump in for a little while in there. Well, the fact is, uh, it's a great, it's a great surprise. And Ted Cruz was important to our story because he was, he was the representative of the Republican establishment. I know that surprises some people who may think about Republicans in a different way than they had, had been becoming ever since Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin. So the Cruz was a kind of establishment, uh, Republican. There were lots of others who ran for president against Trump, but we saw that it was Cruz that Trump really decided to go after. And then when, on top of, of not, not beating Cruz in the Iowa caucuses, Trump pulls out something, he did on the night of the election, uh, in 2020, that is say that it was rigged. It wasn't, wasn't, uh, fair that it had been stolen from him. And then when you dig in a little deeper and say, did he ever say that before? And you find out he did it about the Emmys, the Emmy awards for the Apprentice. Now, by now as a television director, I'm smiling. I know the progression, I'm gonna go backwards into the Emmys and then I'm gonna bounce forward into Mitt Romney, uh, who, when, when Romney lost Trump sits down and does those four tweets, which are basically the game plan for 20, 20 and 2021. So, Donald Trump and the Republican party at that moment delivered for us all the surprises we needed to keep the beginning four or five minutes, uh, interesting, but mostly revelatory.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Right. And I think that the patterns that you help us understand, I, I wanna, I wanna have you just talk about this one thing I always ask you about this. And I always hear from people in the audience and just listeners, how much they appreciate this analysis. So in the way back machine, let's go back 20 years ago, I walk into your edit room and you have hanging from your ceiling, a plumb line. Talk to me about that method, the method that you have that really holds everything together.
MICHAEL KIRK: So we, um, for those who don't know, a plumb, a plumb bob is a, an instrument that carpenters and contractors use to keep it's basically drops to because of gravity to the center of the earth. So it's the straight line to the middle of the earth that all carpenters and everybody who builds something, uh, uh, uses. We ha hung one from the ceiling in the editing room between the editor and me sitting there. So that as you, as you succumb to the things you succumb to, when you're making a film, uh, the flights of fancy what we call the Dipsy doodles, you go down into the rabbit hole with a great something. Seems like a great idea. You're down in there. one of us or, or me, we would look at the other and say, we're off the line. This, this little part of the story is off the line. We've gotta stay on the plumb line, which is the through line through the whole movie. And that is, uh, and that, and that is a savior so that the film doesn't go into diversions, it doesn't, uh, um, take you places that don't make any sense to the audience. And it keeps you true to your story. It keeps you really honest to that. You have to be delivering for, uh, in every scene, in every sentence, in everything you're building, uh, against this idea that there is a solid straight through line all the way through your movie. And it's represented, uh, uh, literally by a plumb bob.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Well, in that way back machine, you know, we would've long conversations and a lot of that, that ideology, the ideology of a line, a lot of people ask what distinguishes a FRONTLINE. And actually it is that cohesiveness through the story that we're always trying to reach for. Um, and so I just, I love, I love the image of the plumb line, which by the way, at the time I had no idea what it was, cuz I really haven't built a lot of things other than documentaries. So you had to Edify me on that front too. Um, so, okay, so back to your film, I, I want you to talk about the opening, the actual open of the film, the Greek chorus of gracious concession speeches from defeated presidential candidates ranging from Hillary Clinton.
HILLARY CLINTON: Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: to John McCain
JOHN McCAIN: I had the honor of calling Sen. Barack Obama to congratulate him. [Booing]
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: and many others over the course of decades.
ADLAI STEVENSON: The people have rendered their verdict, and I gladly accept it.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Then there's Donald Trump.
DONALD TRUMP: We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. We did win this election.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Um, and what I wanted you to talk about is the significance of that cold open, why you chose it, how that idea came to be, that that would be a way to, to frankly say it all.
MICHAEL KIRK: we, uh, we were looking for something you're always looking. If you're a storyteller, uh, you're looking for something that first pictures can tell. What it is. And then, because it's television, then what you can write that makes it better or brings it on the stage more clearly. So you're always, and you're always looking for something that's kind of compacted really good. Um, we didn't really have a great way to end the film. I thought this was a really good idea. It's a good idea. You've watched this entire movie and now you see how everybody else acted once upon a time that the peaceful transfer of power can, has always taken place in America. And it's actually, for those of us, who've watched elections across the years, it, and some of us who've attended that moment. It is breathtaking in a way, many news anchors say it at the day of the inauguration. Here we are something America does uniquely and has done uniquely for more than 250 years, the peaceful transfer of power. Well, of course, that didn't happen with Donald Trump. He was the first president ever. It was the first moment ever. It was shocking to those of us still up in the 2:30 in the morning when he said it the first time. Unbelievable. We even knew he might say something like that, but this? So I thought it would be a good capper to the end of the film. You saw it in the rough cut and you said, no, this is not the end of your film. This is the beginning of your film. And it's why you are who you are. And I am who I am. Uh,
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: We, we were good partnership.
MICHAEL KIRK: Yes. And you moved it up and, uh, and it was, it was a great, uh, Raney, great decision to do it. And I knew when you said it, oh my God. That's right. If we could just, if we could just hit people with the idea without saying it, there's no narration in it. It's just, it's just that.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: We’ll be back with more from Michael Kirk after this.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: So let’s look at another part of the documentary, talk to me about Liz Cheney, just her transition into being this, this voice, um, in the Republican party and, and what you've observed about her.
MICHAEL KIRK: It's quite an arc, actually a personal arc. Daughter of, uh, Dick Cheney, the vice president of George W. Bush, the, the, the, the toughest people called them Darth Vader during that administration and the war in Iraq. Uh, we'd made a number of films about the featured Cheney, uh, uh, rock ribbed Republicans, very conservative Republicans, and, uh, his daughter, Liz, uh, carried the family flag into Congress. Uh, and was a, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump during the first impeachment. She, in her number three role in the leadership of the Republican party kept everybody together, uh, on the, on the, not a single vote for impeachment from the Republican party, very, very anti the Democrats move on that. So when she stepped up in this. And said, wait, this is going too far. This was an election that every state in America has validated in the electoral college. This is not democracy. What we're doing now, that was a shock to all of us who who'd watched, uh, everything else the Republican party was doing, but not a shock to those of us who knew how principled Liz Cheney really found herself and her father believed he was. So it, it made a little bit of sense when she took this tough stand and man, did they eat her alive for it? She was. She was, uh, Tell you summarily kicked out of her job there as the number three. Um, there was a kind of group think that took over the Republican caucus in the house and Kevin McCarthy and others put their power, their money and their mouths where their money was and, uh she was running for reelection and they assisted her opponent. Uh, and, uh, Liz Cheney was destroyed in, uh, her reelection bid, um, in the primary, uh, about a month ago.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Mike you in your film have a number of Republican voices. Talk to me about the method that you have about making sure. I mean, it's really important to hear from Republicans on this, as well as Democrats and as well as the authors and the journalists. Who did you talk to and what did you find most surprising about what you were hearing from the Republicans who spoke to you?
MICHAEL KIRK: Um, we knew in watching this, as I was saying earlier, across the course of the last six years, that there were many, many, many powerful Republicans who did not favor Donald Trump from the candidacy all the way through they, they lived under the general rubric of never Trumpers. Uh, Bill Kristol, Mona Charen, uh, lots of others. Um, we wanted to hear from them about what they saw happen. And there were many other Republicans who hadn't, hadn't been vocal, but had been very worried about it. Uh, and we, so we sort of made a decision that we were not gonna talk to politicians who are Democrats about this. We were only gonna try to hear from Republicans because it's a film about the Republican party and the opportunity to be in a, in a, in a divided country, as divided as this one, politically, uh, and in many other ways, but in political terms, the opportunity to give Democrats a chance to chip away didn't seem appropriate. This was a Republican story. This was inflection points that they stopped at. This was their protection and support of Donald Trump that just fascinated me. This was the leadership agreeing to be silent, agreeing to think they were gonna manipulate him and then being manipulated themselves. Uh, this was the chasing of the MAGA base that Trump identified, uh, nurtured, maybe did their bidding in some cases, instead of what he really wanted to do, but, uh, uh, his power over them and their hold over him and, and subsequently, uh, their power over the Republican party itself that was our story. And it, we needed to hear about that from stalwart well known conservative Republicans, and that's what we got.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: So let's just talk about January 6th now. Um, the, the crisis that we all saw with our own eyes, but talk to me about the, how you decided, um, to lead up to that as a crescendo almost
MICHAEL KIRK: I talked earlier about sequences that become cumulative in some way. And as you connect them together, along the plum line and the chronology, you suddenly, you start to understand, oh my God, I'm watching something horrible coming. What will it be? Uh, uh, and I think everybody in the audience knows it's gonna be January 6th. It's at least the big inflection moment. Now there will be others. And we knew we wanted to do post January 6th for the big part of the film, more than half an hour of the film is after January 6th. So, we knew what it was. It was the big crisis point. Um, and, and, and we needed to take people there and give people an understanding of just what the circumstances were, uh, going back all the way back to, uh, the Republican convention where Donald Trump said, I will be a strong man where essentially he spoke like a strong man and that appealed tremendously to that crowd there and to the unaffected, disaffected, uh, uh, uh, young white men who made up part of the new Republicans that were coming in, young white men, who listened to Alex Jones and other parts of, uh, uh, uh, right wing radio. So that, that group alive and well, uh, growing and, and being appealed to by Donald Trump, growing in the body politic, uh, creating, uh, uh, uh, the feeling that they were Patriots and that they were about to go into a war on behalf of this man, especially after he'd been acquitted in the first impeachment. He was unleashed in lots of ways. Every all the Republicans tell Even the Republicans who were with him, tell us he was unbound now and unbound to do what? Unbound to send the police onto the streets. Unbound to claim Antifa was taking over our government. Unbound to, to, to validate and, and, and create fear inside these extreme uh Republican men and some women, uh, who populated the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers and all the other groups. And he lit that fire that day when they were all, he called them all to come to the white house. They were out there on the lawn. He lit that fire that day. There's no doubt in my mind about it. And there's no doubt in the minds of, of, uh, of the people whose fire, he lit. They believed him. They wanted to go. They've told us they, we were, they told FRONTLINE many times we, we were sent to go there. We were ordered to go there. We felt we had a patriotic duty to do it. So you see it happen. And it is the culmination in some ways of his final act as president of the United States. Um, and it is a wrap up of the story that starts all the way back with Ted Cruz and his refusal to believe the results of that vote all the way up to this moment, people call it an operatic moment, but that's too nice for what it was. It was, it was, I've seen so much of the video. You've seen so much of the video that we don't put in the film that we can't put in the film that is just blood curdling. And, uh, and there it was, and there it happened, uh, in that way. And in our film, it was the immediate reaction of the Republicans to it. And then the follow on reaction to it. 20 days later, that provided for us the great contrast, the final ceiling of the deal, the, uh, Faustian bargain if you will, the, the deal with the devil as people call it, where McConnell, uh, McCarthy, Lindsey, Graham, and others, um, left the president, left him in the dust, said he did it. It's horrible. I'm not with him anymore. This is crazy. And they could have left him there politically dead. But they didn't. And that's the second, the third big part of our story that we went to.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Right. I mean, I think that was when we talked a lot about that, why it was so important to March beyond January 6th was for that reason. So talk to me about post January 6th. What, what, what happens and not just in the film, but just in your thinking about what was the most important part of it to tell.
MICHAEL KIRK: So I think a lot of, a lot of people we talked to, um, including, you know, if we didn't talk to McCarthy, we talked to McCarthy's chief of staff and I don't mean McCarthy being, uh, McConnell. Um, we, so, so we knew what was in their heads. We knew that McConnell, for example, never believed that the election was stolen. Never believed that anybody but Biden was gonna be president of the United States, but he had stayed with Trump. He had been silent about it. So when it happens, he stands up on the floor and says when January 6th happens and says that, blah, you know, this is, this is horrible. The president made them do this. Same with McCarthy, same with Lindsey Graham.
But then as Trump leaves, as he flies away, refuses to go to the inauguration, he threatens Ronna McDaniel, the head of the, uh, Republican National Committee and, and basically says, you didn't stand with me. Now I've had it. I'm going, I'm gonna leave the party. And I'm gonna take the MAGA people with me. And that means tens, hundreds of millions of dollars. That means every election, a Republican told me that they really believed that if he did it and they believed he would do it, that it would take, it would be it for the Republican party for a generation. So they're all sitting there saying, what the heck are we gonna do? We've trashed him publicly. How do, how do we do we stand up and just let him say it and hope that he'll fade into a relevance cause he's dead, politically dead. And as Adam Kinzinger, Congressman Kinzinger told us, uh, Kevin McCarthy flies down to Mar a Lago and, and brings the paddles to the operating room table and shocks Donald Trump's, uh, political life back into place just by being there, just by having that photograph that's taken, uh, Trump is alive, alive, and well as a Republican. And, uh, and one by one, they start to make their pilgrimages back flying down there. Even Lindsay Graham to play a little golf with, uh, with Donald Trump is back on the good side. So that, that compact, that decision that we're going to be Republicans, he's gonna be our leader. It's gonna be the Donald Trump party. And we are seeing the effect of that in the primaries all over the country and as we head for the midterms.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: You have a ton of questions in the chat now, and I'll just start with a couple of them. Um, one question I really appreciate everyone who's sent in questions. Um, what can be done to stop Trumpian anti-democratic regression?
MICHAEL KIRK: Vote. Vote, go vote, participate. If you like 'em vote for 'em, uh, it's a it's America. Arm yourself with all the information you need, including this film and decide for yourself. That's uh, that's what I, I try to tell everybody that's the message of the film. It's uh, you wanna, you gotta participate. You gotta participate.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: So a, a great compliment, um, from one of our, um, audience members that I've watched many FRONTLINES that have been informative and enlightening, but this one seems to be remarkably powerful. What has been the reception in the reaction to the film?
MICHAEL KIRK: Um, uh, my I'll tell you my reaction to the film. I've never, I've made many, many, many, many, many, many, many-
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Countless, countless.
MICHAEL KIRK: I don't even want to say how many FRONTLINEs and, uh, uh, I, and I'm proud of all of them, but I have never been so distressed at the end of making a film as I am now. You can't cover politics as I have for 50 years and not, uh, and not love it at some level and not believe in it. Almost like a religion in some way. And, and to hear it and see it. So, uh, tenuous right now, uh, uh, I'm worried, I'm worried, I'm worried about all of us and I don't know what's gonna fix it, but I know that journalism has a role to be in there to say and talk about it and FRONTLINE is there and we'll keep doing it, but wow. It feels a little, a little tenuous. The response, generally speaking has been amazingly positive to me,
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Yeah. I mean, one of the things I would say, um, is that the response to this film has been sobering. I think people are like, like you, Michael, I think people are concerned. I think there's a, a gratitude for laying down the bricks of the story for being a record of what's actually happened.
So we don't know in which regard the country is gonna go and grow. And I think at least the very least that we did is we, we said what's happened. We fact checked it. We vetted it. We told it as it was. And, and this is a document now. Um, and it is a record of what, what has happened over the last number of years, looking ahead. Um, this is from one of our audience members “I believed truth would eventually break through the lies. I haven't seen this happen. People have inherent beliefs that limit people to what they will accept as truth that is contrary to their beliefs. How do people acquire open minds?”
I, I love that question and Mike, I want you to answer. You may have some good thoughts on that.
MICHAEL KIRK: I think what we try to arrive at is truth is a truth about things it's a hard and, and, and, uh, and complicated process. We try to arrive at a position that's fair to everybody we're reporting on. And when we, if we, if we do go a little hard on somebody or harder on somebody, it comes from a place of knowing that the, it didn't tell the truth. Um, it's a challenging time to be a journalist in America right now. But in general, in our society are deeply divided, deeply partisan society where lies have become the currency. Uh, in our political, uh, debates and on some parts of our media landscape, social media, uh, where it’s just opinion, but it's not designed to enhance the truth and to make people wiser, uh, voters. And that's, I, I just think that's our task and, and, uh, that's, that's how you get the truth out. Whether people can hear the truth is the process of just getting it out there as much as possible. I think.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Yeah, and I, I would add one, um, one big difference is what are uh, younger people hearing and believing and what kind of avenues of information are they getting? You know, and something, cuz I have teenagers. Um, we talk a lot about is that this is, these are really the first generations who are having an unmitigated experience with their phones, with their laptops, with all of the social media lies coming at them. So it's more important than ever. Um, so this is, this is a multi-tier, you know, fight, I think really against mis- and disinformation that we all need to fight and be part of in the same way that we all need to vote. So, Mike, do you have any parting words for us?
MICHAEL KIRK: Here's the one thing I can guarantee you we'll be there. We're on we're on the case, whatever, whatever it is and wherever it is. And I, I cringe every time I think about how hard it is to make one of these. And yet we're, we're, we'll, we'll be there. Thanks. Thanks to your willingness to support us Raney and, uh, in your direction and to the viewers who watch these films and, and, and comment back to us about how much they need 'em and want 'em. And, um, you know, and our times the times are incredibly, uh, complicated and turbulent and, uh, and it's our job to, to get in there and mix it up and try to try to make sense out of it and follow that plum line through one story after another, uh, for as long as we can.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: Michael, thank you as always. And I wanna just thank the whole audience for your amazing questions. Um, a few people have asked where they can see FRONTLINE, and this is a really important moment for me to say that all of our documentaries are available to screen on pbs.org/frontline. You can find our films, actually that go back in some cases, decades. It's an amazing resource. Um, we actually spend a lot of time and effort on making sure our archive is open and available in front of all paywalls. Really appreciate your participation today, and we'll see you at the next time that we all gather together again. Thanks.
RANEY ARONSON-RATH: This episode of the FRONTLINE Dispatch was produced by Emily Pisacreta.
Erika Howard is our Director of Impact Strategy and External Relations.
Maria Diokno is our Director of Audience Development.
Katherine Griwert is our Editorial Coordinating Producer.
Frank Koughan is our Senior Producer.
Lauren Ezell is our Senior Editor of Investigations.
Andrew Metz is our Managing Editor. I’m Raney Aronson-Rath, editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE.
Music in this episode is by Stellwagen Symphonette. The FRONTLINE Dispatch is produced at GBH and powered by PRX.
