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A violent mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol on January 6, as Congress met to certify Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. The rioters plotted for weeks beforehand on social media, mobilizing around President Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and were egged on by him and others at a rally just before they stormed the Capitol.
Who are the forces behind the attack, how did it unfold and why was the law enforcement presence so easily overpowered?
ProPublica reporter and FRONTLINE correspondent A.C. Thompson, who covered the rise of right-wing extremism for our joint “Documenting Hate” series, joins The FRONTLINE Dispatch podcast to discuss what happened at the Capitol, President Trump’s role and what the future may hold.
“This was definitely something that you could predict,” Thompson tells FRONTLINE’s executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath about the Capitol’s siege this week. “For the last three years, people have been talking about civil war; people have been talking about overthrowing the government.”
And now, we may see “a movement that’s been further radicalized by this event,” Thompson says. “We have a big concern that what happens next may be more radical, more violent, and more damaging to the culture than what we’ve seen so far.”
- LISTEN to Chaos at the Capitol
- READ a new report from ProPublica & FRONTLINE that identifies members of several well-known hate groups, hardcore nativists and white nationalists at the Capitol riot
- WATCH a video on how the siege was planned in plain sight
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