[music]

Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar, in for Alison Stewart. If you were in charge of the US government and you had six hours to respond to an attempted insurrection, what would you do? This is a question that drove a secret national security exercise that took place on January 6, 2023, steps from the US Capitol. To be clear, this was a simulated exercise that took place two years after the very real attack on that same Sapitol. Leaders from the military, the CIA, the FBI, former senators, and a former governor participated in this simulation. They had six hours to navigate a hypothetical crisis in which extremists tried to overtake the Capitol to contest the results of an election.

The six-hour simulation is gripping, alarming, and it is captured in the documentary War Game. Here's a clip from the trailer. In this trailer, you're going to hear a fake hypothetical candidate from the simulation urging his candidates to do something. Let's listen.

General Roger Sims: My fellow Americans, it is undeniable that this past election was stolen. To all those members of the armed forces, join with us to defend our liberty and land.

Speaker 1: Seated around this room is an incredible diversity of professional experience spanning the last five presidential administrations. Most of you have sworn under oath to defend the constitution. What happens when those in uniform break that oath?

Speaker 2: January 6th demonstrated a possible false sense of security.

Speaker 3: The next insurrection could involve members of the active duty military turning their weapons around on the folks that they are there to protect. One of the recommendations was to war game what that might look like.

President Hotham: I am President Hotham, Ghief Executive of the United States of America.

General Roger Sims: You have six hours to avert a civil war and ensure the peaceful transfer of power.

Speaker 4: Mr. President, we are going to be starting the game in three-

Speaker 5: We are here to stress-

Speaker 4: -two-

Speaker 5: -our national security system.

Speaker 4: -one.

Speaker 5: I want them to be prepared for the worst case scenarios.

Kousha Navidar: War Game is being screened at the Film Forum on August 2nd. Here to talk to us about the film are the directors, Jesse Moss. Hi, Jesse.

Jesse Moss: Hi.

Kousha Navidar: We also have Tony Gerber. Hi, Tony.

Tony Gerber: Pleased to be here.

Kousha Navidar: We also have Janessa Goldbeck, who is CEO of the Vet Voice foundation, and one of the game's producers. Welcome, Janessa.

Janessa Goldbeck: Thanks for having us.

Kousha Navidar: It's such a pleasure to get to talk to you about this documentary, especially to have you in the room right here. As many people were in the room, the fake situation room, trying to navigate the hypothetical insurrection. Janessa, where did the idea for the simulation come from? What does a game producer do?

Janessa Goldbeck: Yes. Well, after the January 6th insurrection, several of the general officers in our network who are advisors to Vet Voice Foundation, penned an op-ed in The Washington Post that said they were increasingly concerned that this could happen again, specifically that members of the armed forces and veterans were being disproportionately targeted for recruitment into extremist groups. One of their recommendations was for the government to actually do a war game like this, interagency, to prep for what would happen if members of the military actually participated and turned their weapons around on folks they were there to protect.

We spoke to the administration and they said, look, we think that's a great idea, but it's such a politicized, partisan issue at this point. Why don't you guys take the mantle and run with it? As a civil service organization, we decided to do just that and bring together across the aisle experts in the military and government who could participate in this and help us tease out what are some of the vulnerabilities in our system today.

Kousha Navidar: I hear it was bipartisan. It tried to miss the media a little bit, maybe a little bit under the rug thing. What does a game producer do? What did you do to make this idea come to fruition once the administration said run with it?

Janessa Goldbeck: Well, my role as the CEO of the organization was really to bring together the right team of people to make this thing come to life. That meant bringing on consultants and designers who could create a scenario that was realistic, but also took the knob and turned it up on all things that have happened before, but happening all at once on the worst possible day, and then to bring together the players. Everyone who was cast in a role is someone who either held that role in the past or held a very proximate role. That's why you hear there's folks from the last five administrations from all political persuasion, some military generals who are completely nonpartisan, who participated because they feel so strongly that this is such an issue, bringing those people together and then making sure that we had an incredible team running on day of.

We were so fortunate to be able to link up with Jesse and Tony to take this exercise from just being a closed door, behind the scenes exercise into something that American public and the world has an eye on.

Kousha Navidar: That is an interesting point because that's what I was wondering while I was watching this. Jesse, it's a secret simulation. Why was it secret? How did you find out about it?

Jesse Moss: We have some mutual acquaintances. I read the op-ed in The Washington Post, and it struck me, and I'm worried about our political future. I'm trying to process what we all live through on January 6, 2021. This struck me as a great way to do both things at once. I didn't expect that we would get access, but Janessa and her organization are fearless. They were prepared to give us the editorial freedom that we need as journalists and storytellers.

Also, it struck me as an extraordinary opportunity to be in this White House situation room, which is the space that they're creating with a fictional president. I've just never been in that space before, and I wanted to see what would that feel like. It's a vantage point that most of us don't have. I think we're a little bit tired of thinking about what happened in the past and looking for new ways to think about what might happen in the future. It was really an exciting space to try to get access to. Fortunately, Janessa said yes.

Kousha Navidar: Tony, did you have a sense of what you wanted to capture before you went in there? Did something surprise you as you were watching the simulation play out?

Tony Gerber: I think the thing that was most surprising for me is just how vulnerable our democracy is. I think we're at a time in our society in which we need to take stock of those vulnerabilities and understand what they are and circle the wagons, quite frankly. War Game is a provocation for a conversation we should have had a long time ago, but it's really not too late.

Kousha Navidar: That comes through in the documentary, especially while I was watching it, in the order of Columbus side of things. Can you, Tony, talk a little bit about-- Because we talked about what the US government leaders are doing. There's this whole other half of the simulation going that is these folks that are the extremists, who are the Order of Columbus in the simulation.

Tony Gerber: Yes. Typically, a war game has a blue force and a red force, a opposition force. The opposition force play the part of the insurrectionists, who, in our case, were down the hall in the hotel, had their own cell that was designed after a cop bar in DC. In there, they’re hurling all sorts of obstacles and virtual Molotov cocktails at President Hotham and his administration to do everything in their power to undermine the peaceful transfer of power.

The Order of Columbus was a mishmash of different far right groups, but the leaders of the red cell are authorities on the far right and have themselves infiltrated the far right and spent many waking hours living and walking those experiences. What you see in War Game is very much based in reality.

The Order of Columbus was an organization, an oath keepers, you might say, except that it was positioned as a religious organization, so it evaded certain tax oversight and government oversight as a religion. It's led by a charismatic character named General Roger Sims, who's inspired, you might say, by Mike Flynn, a retired general himself. This patriarch character who you heard in that little teaser that you played, is calling on active duty troops to support the losing candidate in this recent election.

Kousha Navidar: In the simulation itself, at least in the documentary, there is a practical, not leader, but individual that we hear a lot from, who is playing in the order of Columbus. I'm talking about Chris Goldsmith, who in real life is a former member of the military. Here's a clip of Chris from the movie talking about his job in the simulation.

Chris Goldsmith: We are here to play the role of the unfaithful, of those who are willing to do violence to achieve political ends. I am thinking like an insurgent. I am doing what I expect enemies of democracy to be doing as they plan the next assault.

Kousha Navidar: Jesse, what are Chris and his teammates actually doing during the simulation to push their side's agenda?

Jesse Moss: They're sowing chaos first at the US Capitol, but what makes this War Game unique is that the insurrection spreads around the country. It’s something we didn’t see in 2021. We have active duty members of the US military defecting, members of the National Guard throwing in with this insurrection force, local law enforcement also throwing in with this insurrection. This is the crisis our president and his advisors have to confront, a metastasizing crisis in state capitals, in different states, not just the US Capitol, where they’re attempting to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power.

What made this exercise appealing to me as a subject is so many people involved have military experience. They're looking at this institution out of love and respect, like Janessa, who was a Marine Corps veteran, Chris Goldsmith, an army veteran. That was, I think, really validating for me that this was a criticism from within, not from without.

Kousha Navidar: At certain points, the documentary expands beyond the simulation itself and talks about the psychology behind insurrection. Here's a clip that really struck me while I was watching. It's Chris Goldsmith again, the leader of the Order of Columbus team. Let's listen.

Chris Goldsmith: Our founding fathers predicted that should our republic fail, it would be from a threat within. What that means is Americans lose faith in our republic, lose faith in our election system. That is happening today in a way that is completely unprecedented for modern times.

Kousha Navidar: Completely unprecedented from modern times. Janessa when you're listening to Chris talk to that, what goes through your mind?

Janessa Goldbeck: I think one of the values that I share with many of the other veterans who participated in this project was a sense that the idea of democracy was being denigrated from many places in our society, and that Americans, in some cases, quite rightfully, are asking, does the system work for me? If not, should it be overthrown? We're seeing this bent of authoritarianism in our politics today that is new for someone at my age. I'm in my late 30s, and of course, we've seen it in the past, but never from the top of the ticket.

I think that we really feel so strongly, those of us who have put on a uniform and served this country and swore an oath to defend the constitution, that it is our obligation to raise this conversation in American society to say we need to take a hard look at what people are proposing, the authorities that they are to impose on you, the liberties they are attempting to strip from you.

This conversation can't just happen with people in Washington. It needs to be happening at kitchen tables, in churches and vfws across the country. That's one of the things I hope that this film can help inspire.

Kousha Navidar: How about for you? How is that sense of institutions being eroded resonated with your own experience with those conversations happening at the kitchen table?

Janessa Goldbeck: Yes, well, you'll see in the film I talk a lot about in my own family. One of my parents has fully gone down the QAnon rabbit hole, and that has certainly been a challenge for me and other members of my family to try to square, because this is somebody who I love and is a very rational, smart person. I think there are a lot of families out there who are dealing with almost two sets of realities in terms of the news they're consuming and the information or disinformation they might be seeing.

I think it's very important that we not just stay in our own silos, but that we interact with people who have different experiences and different belief and do so in a way that's conversational and emotive and full of empathy. I do think that's one thing. This film has been called the scariest movie of the year, but it is also a film that's full of hope and full of love. I think everyone who participated in the project brought that love for their country, for democracy, to the table.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. That idea of it being bipartisan, I think was really important while I was watching it. What was it like for you, seeing folks from either both sides of the aisle or, like, expressly no side of the aisle trying to interact in real time?

Janessa Goldbeck: It's interesting. Everybody who came to this exercise and participated in this project shared the value of wanting to protect and promote democracy and conversation across the aisle. One of the most surprising things for me is some of the friendships and relationships that I've built with folks who I absolutely disagree with on about 99.9% of things, but who I think are extraordinarily courageous in what they've chosen to do, how they've chosen to speak out, how they've chosen to use their platform to ensure that this country and all that it stands for continues for another 300 years?

Kousha Navidar: Yes, it was interesting to watch the actual decisions being made in real time. At one point, we see the players on the side of the US government debating whether or not to bug the phone of their opposing leader who lost the election. Let's listen to a quick clip of that.

General Wes Clark: No one has to know whether we're monitoring this phone or not. No one has to know.

Player 2: But someone will at some point. That monitoring everyone else--

General Wes Clark: It's just his phone.

Player 2: I understand. Six-tenths of percent in a deeply divided country, if that ever came out.

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, just to be clear, this is where the folks in the hypothetical US government are talking about whether bugging the phone of the opposition was worth the political risk to gain information.

Tony, one thing that quickly becomes apparent in this documentary that I think will resonate with listeners is how real things feel, how quickly they feel. When you were in the room, when you were watching these folks, what were the deliberations like on the side of the government? How quickly did it feel like these things were becoming real?

Tony Gerber: Well, I'll say this. War Game represents a what-if scenario that every day becomes more real. When we shot this film in January 2023, the great protector of Black jobs was hardly on the political scene. He had disappeared by and large. but with every twist and turn of this crazy political season, the film just seems to change. Every time you see it, it feels like a different film, which is extraordinary.

Jesse Moss: I'll just add that I think Tony and I, when we watched the action begin, frankly, as filmmakers, we weren't sure it would work, that these role players, who are real world civil servants, could play characters. They're characters based on their real world experience, but we didn't know that they would lean into their roles and their characters and this story, but immediately was captivating.

The president, and played by Steve Bullock, a former governor, and his advisor Heidi Heitkamp, a US senator, they are wrestling with the thorniest of problems, whether to invoke the insurrection act and deploy active duty military on us soil. You realize the president has to play four-dimensional chess. He's got legal issues. He's got political issues. He's got an insurrection fomenting in his country. We are right there at the table with him watching and trying to manage this and getting conflicting advice from his advisors.

You heard General Wes Clark speaking about this bugging. I think for us, we're voyeurs to this remarkable space. They leaned into their roles with a degree that was utterly captivating. Fortunately, I think, for our audience, we got to take the six hour exercise and condense it down to 90 minutes.

Kousha Navidar: How did you condense it down to 90 minutes as filmmakers? Tony, maybe we can start with you. What was your strategy?

Tony Gerber: Michelangelo always said that sculpting is about taking a chunk of marble and removing what's not the thing so you're left with the thing. It was almost a year long process. We worked with a great editor named Jeff Gilbert, who Jesse has worked with on several films. It was really a process of trial and error. We knew that the film had to lead with empathy. We knew that our audience had to care about these characters because if they didn't care, it's just an abstract intellectual exercise.

Really it was these game designers, including Janessa and Ben Rad, whose backstories gave tremendous insight into why they were doing this, what motivated them. They all had skin in the game. Once we discovered that as an element that we could leave the tension of this countdown from six hours to save democracy and do these little sidebars with these characters, it made the experience that much richer. Then I think the film really just came together.

Kousha Navidar: We hear many people in the film talk about this "false sense of security." and I'm using quotes there. Can you speak Jesse to that a little bit, how you wanted to handle that so people had a sense of it in the documentary?

Jesse Moss: That's right. I think we do live with a false sense of security. As someone who lived through 911 in lower Manhattan, experienced January 6, we've confronted events that really defy imagination. I love that the creative task here was to imagine this future event. That's hard to do. It's like looking into the abyss. You have to do it with courage and conviction. I think the degree of versimilitude in this exercise made it really attractive.

The realism of the situation room that was created, the fact that there's a White House briefing room. We talked about the red cell, the opposition force. There's a news network that exists within the simulation that's giving the people in the sit room, the president, real time updates about what's happening in the world. Plus, he's got to deal with propaganda that's coming at him from social media that's being disseminated by this red cell opposition force. All of it made for a completely immersive environment, I think. We're able to exist inside of it. It's why I think we can really buy into the drama and get caught up.

I think it's important, as Janessa noted, to know that it's scary, but I think it leaves us hopefully knowing that it's important for all of us to contemplate the worst case scenario so that we're prepared for it when it comes.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. I'm looking at the clock. I want to be sure that we touch on one more thing, which is what happens after this simulation. For you, Jamessa, I'm sure the simulation had a bunch of surprises, but for you, it was all about what you could learn from it. The simulation ends. I'm not going to ruin what happens, but I want to know for you what happened next. What are you doing with that experience right now?

Janessa Goldbeck: Well, from the get go, the original idea was to produce a report and share it with the administration agencies and Congress, which we did. I think anyone who's worked as in an NGO or in a civil service organization knows that sometimes when you make recommendations to the government, there's a thank you very much, we'll take a look, which was why it was so important for us to have this film, to allow people to see what some of these vulnerabilities are and to ask questions of their government and their leaders. What are we doing about this.

The efforts to contain and really examine extremism in the military have unfortunately been completely waylaid by partisanship. There's a committee in Congress to look at it, and it's been pretty inactive because folks say that it's disrespectful to the troops to question whether or not they're loyal to the constitution.

We know that extremism in the military is a problem we know that extremism in our society is a problem, and the military is a reflection of our society. We need our leaders to own that. If you love something, you work to make it stronger. That is what we're hoping that this film helps inspire.

Kousha Navidar: Any ideas for another simulation? Is that on the radar?

Janessa Goldbeck: We're actually in the works right now. One of the biggest lessons we took away from this simulation was there are a lot of smart people across the spectrum working on what happens at the federal level if we take an even more severe turn towards authoritarianism, but for state leaders and local leaders, they often don't have the same resources. When you think about something like the Insurrection Act or you look at some of the proposals within Project 2025, there are things that local leaders will own, so are exercising-- We're about to kick something off in Arizona in a couple weeks. We'll be looking to do that in states across the country.

Kousha Navidar: Wow, I can't wait to hear more about it. War Game is being screened at the film forum on August 2nd. We've been talking to the directors Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber, as well as Janessa Goldbeck, CEO of Vet Voice Foundation and one of the game's producers. Thank you all so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

Tony Gerber: Pleasure to be here.

Jesse Moss: Thank you.

Janessa Goldbeck: Thank you.

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.