- What was the mood at a Trump rally?
What was the feeling?
Fun? Sure.
Camaraderie? Yeah.
Uh, what else? Oh, yeah-- Rage.
I watched it simmer at these rallies for years,
then building during the campaign.
And I was there on January 6th
when it finally boiled over into the Capitol building.
Here's what the awful day of insurrection looked like
on the ground from the point of view of a guy
who was just there to find some laughs.
(crowd chanting) USA! USA! USA! USA!
- I'm here in the nation's capital.
They're boarding up some of the buildings here,
and I overheard a man in fatigues say
they're worried about antifa.
Yeah, that's who they're worried about,
man in military fatigues.
Being on the ground on January 6th was really unnerving
from the very beginning.
Even the night before the insurrection
when we checked into our D.C. hotel,
we knew this was different.
We overheard wild conversations
in the lobby full of MAGA-faithful,
maskless supporters claiming COVID stories
of packed emergency rooms were lies,
and they were all, in fact, empty.
Seeing a lot of cosplay here.
There's military here, and then there's a lot of these people
who are pretending to be military here.
You know how you know?
Because they don't have badges, they just have notes
from their wife that says, you can go for the weekend
and hang out with your friends, but be back on time.
My producer wanted to ease into the interviews
after seeing the charged crowd full of Proud Boys,
Oath Keepers, QAnon believers and anyone else
willing to toss aside our democracy.
It's getting a bit hectic there, so I wanted to find some space.
Luckily, there is some here at the National Museum
of African American History and Culture.
Then we spotted a group of Proud Boys
appearing to leave the event, heading east toward the Capitol
well before Trump finished his speech.
(Proud Boys shouting) - Whoo!
- We found filming on the National Mall
was a safer, more effective way to get real conversations.
For a while.
Then we found a man acting unhinged with a pitchfork.
- This is a warning!
We can mobilize a million people to any city in this country now.
Make no mistake, that's the situation.
That's right, man. We're not playing around!
- Who was interrupted by a man acting more unhinged.
- How come we got a million people at the monument
when over there is where they're screwing us?
How come nobody's over there?
How come we're not down--
Why don't you all come down there and film Congress
putting it to us?! - They're coming, don't worry.
- (bleep) all you all mother(bleep).
(bleep) all y'all.
- The really unhinged guy
angered the sort of unhinged guy wielding the pitchfork.
- I'll speak for myself! - Okay, he speaks for himself.
- The camera's down. Okay, the camera's down.
♪
- Proud Boys are here.
As we were setting up for a quick stand-up,
we noticed another large group
marching aggressively down the street.
The Proud Boys all passed by again.
We settled in a spot
just outside the northwest side of the Capitol,
because we knew that at around 1:00 p.m.
that angry crowd would be arriving there
from the White House.
And we knew that if things got hairy,
it gave us the best escape route to the train and our cars.
And then words became actions.
The barricades got pushed over and folks flooded in.
We're starting to see this mass of people.
They broke through the gates here,
and now they're heading into the-- the Capitol.
I'm hearing people say, "It's our house."
I heard some old man start screaming,
"Forward. Forward."
It's our house. It's-- Democracy should
look more organized than what we're seeing right now.
Good, good, good, good. Good.
(crowd shouting)
- Trump supporters were getting up on the stairs,
the fences and the embankments,
barking at people, telling them where to go.
(crowd shouting)
- Everyone turned into field generals,
most of them wearing sweatshirts you buy at airports
when you get cold waiting to board your flight.
(crowd shouting)
Folks have pushed through,
and now they're heading into the Capitol.
No violence, other than shoving that down
and carrying pitchforks.
It was a mix of the scary and the absurd.
MAGA in a nutshell. There were the scary...
There were the absurd...
Can-- Can I ask you some questions?
Are you afraid, if you run out of batteries
for the last stand that you'll be thwarted?
- Good luck, I hope you don't run into
bumpy terrain or stairs.
Personally, I don't think I'll ever forget
talking to a man on a Segway who was attempting to
toppled the greatest democracy on Earth.
- The Democrat party,
progressives, socialists, Marxists,
pose a far greater threat to this nation
than any-- any person on the battlefield.
- We looked around and we were shocked,
but not surprised.
The last 14 months tipped it pretty good.
The total distrust of facts and information.
The cult-like devotion, not to their country or ideals,
but to a person.
Of course they were gonna get here.
(loud bang)
- All right, here we go.
- And we knew it was time to leave.
We continued listening to the escalating insurrection
unfold in the only place a comedy show should--
from the quiet car of a Nasella
rushing back to New York City.