Downloaded from YTS.MX
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
[dramatic music playing]
[Dakota] Yep, there we go.
We will see if that's any better or more stable.
-[beeping] -[Dakota] Hooray!
Oh, no sound.
Whoops.
Okay.
I am Dakota Adams,
and a time of massive change is supposed to arrive soon.
But thankfully for you,
my logged-in few, if Armageddon is indeed upon us,
you're in the right place.
My entire life has been spent preparing for the end times.
My father, the man the Feds consider
to be one of the masterminds of the January 6th riot,
and founder of the now infamous Oath Keepers,
was Elmer Stewart Rhodes III.
From inside our world, he was heroic,
and was going to save America from the end of the world.
[crowd clamoring]
[Dakota] Living for the apocalypse is nothing new.
Humanity has been terrifying itself with Armageddon
since the first deep thinker came out of a cave asking,
"What happens if the sun doesn't rise tomorrow?"
Stewart's vision of the future starts
with a tyrannical government that would take away our guns
and our liberty.
We'll then be plunged into civil war,
a desperate fight for survival
that would ultimately destroy America as we know it.
Most outsiders will simply believe
this is all just conspiracy bullshit.
But for Stewart, the fear was all-consuming,
and the dangers extremely real.
He believed we should stand up to the government,
and taught me about great patriots
who ended up paying a heavy, heavy price.
Great out here. The rains have come this summer.
The grass is tall, it's still green.
My cows are fat.
[Dakota] This is LaVoy Finicum.
Like Stewart, his beliefs are deeply rooted
in the US Constitution,
and he felt the law of the land had been violated.
He chose to make a stand by taking over federal park land.
[dramatic music playing]
[Lavoy] I am putting everything on the line!
I am putting my life on the line.
I am putting my children's life on the line.
And so, you must decide for yourself.
If you're not ready, that is fine.
But for me, myself, just LaVoy Finicum,
this simple man, this simple redneck,
I will stand.
This is no longer the land of the free.
In order to be free, you must be brave.
I'm gonna meet the sheriff. The sheriff is waiting for us.
So, you do as you damn well please!
This is LaVoy Finicum.
You wanna shoot me, you shoot me!
Thomas Jefferson taught we have to defend our rights,
or they are taken from us by a greater force.
This is about freedom. This is about America.
[man] They're out there.
-[Lavoy] Hang on! Hang on! -[woman] Okay, they're shooting.
[woman] Stay down here.
[Lavoy] Go ahead and shoot me.
-[woman] Stay down. -[Lavoy] Go ahead and shoot me.
[woman] Stay down, stay down, stay down.
Stay down. Stay down.
Shoot me! You'll have to shoot me!
[woman] Did they shoot him?
-[girl] Oh, my God! -[woman] Watch out. Watch out.
Stay down.
[girl] Did they kill him? God, keep us safe, please.
[woman] Please. Please protect us, God.
[girl] Please, God. God...
[woman] Please protect us. Please protect us.
[man] We got lasers still on us.
LaVoy got out. I think they killed LaVoy.
[dramatic music playing]
[Lavoy] Stewart would make me aware of many,
many stories like this.
Each taking us one step closer... to the end times.
There's nothing to be afraid of.
["Ring of Fire" playing]
♪ I fell into A burning ring of fire
♪ I went down, down, down And the flames went higher
♪ And it burns, burns, burns
♪ The ring of fire The ring of fire
♪ The ring of fire The ring of fire ♪
[dramatic music playing]
[Dakota] To help you understand how an apocalyptic obsession
has defined my life
and the lives of everyone I care about,
I want to take you back to the start
and begin with the most obsessive human thing of all.
Long before Stewart would become America's Most Wanted,
a long, long time before, he met my mom, Tasha Adams.
[soft music playing]
[Tasha] I was working at Arthur Murray Dance Studios.
And... I looked out from the training room
where I was studying for my big dance teacher test.
And I thought, "Oh, there's a young person."
Everyone in the studio is so old.
So, I noticed him.
A few days later,
the assistant manager of the dance studio
brought me into her office.
She was just so glamorous, and she had danced everywhere.
And when she brought me into her office,
she surprised me because instead of talking about
the dance students and the schedule,
she started telling me this long story
about how she met her husband.
And she was working on a cruise ship as a performer,
and she just believed in love...
true love.
And then she ended it by saying, "This can't go outside of here,
'cause dating students is strictly against
all Arthur Murray protocol."
"But I have just this strong feeling."
"I really want you to meet my new student,
his name is Stewart."
And we met another few days later at a,
don't laugh, a Dance-O-Rama.
It's a competition.
Everything is glamorous except the champagne,
which is really cheap.
So, we met, and we danced, and we started secretly dating.
I thought it was probably
the most romantic event of my life, really.
He would just tell me
he'd never met anyone as smart as me.
[chuckles]
I had grown up Mormon.
He let me know he had been baptized Mormon.
He did not explain to me
that he had been baptized in every church.
He had gone to five different high schools
from all his parents moving around.
And he didn't even know what a vowel was.
You know, he had to ask me, "What does that even mean?"
But he seemed like,
if someone just loved him enough,
and cared for him enough,
that he could realize his potential.
[minister] Now, with the legal authority vested in me,
I pronounce you husband and wife,
and you may kiss your bride.
-[chuckles] -[guests applauds]
[soft music playing]
[Tasha] We had six kids.
[Tasha cheers]
He also got into Yale Law School,
which was a big deal.
[Dakota] Stewart wrote a paper while at Yale
about how the government had eroded the Constitution
since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
It was highly regarded, it even won an award.
[Tasha] He had all these bright plans for the future.
Kept saying what the country really needed was a group
based on people who had sworn an oath to the Constitution.
-I... -I...
...do solemnly swear...
...that I will bear true faith and allegiance...
...to the United States of America.
One of the names he had written down was Oath Keepers,
as I thought, "Well, that's a winner."
Yeah, I mean, I thought...
"What's not to like?"
You know? [chuckles] Right?
You're gonna keep your oath to the Constitution.
What could go wrong? [chuckles]
[crowd clamoring]
[rioter] I was invited here by the president!
An angry pro-Trump mob storms the US Capitol.
[reporter] What you're witnessing is,
I think, fair to say, unprecedented.
Some of these rioters who are coming out from here.
These are, I believe, Oath Keepers.
The Oath Keepers have been around since 2009.
It describes itself online as a, quote,
"Nonpartisan association of current and formerly serving
military police and first responders," unquote.
And the group claims to have 30,000 members.
The Oath Keepers were seen at the insurrection
walking in line through the mob.
Investigators accused the group of playing a key role
in conspiring to incite violence.
USA!
[reporter] Research by the Program on Extremism,
which currently tracks all 711 cases as of today,
highlights at least 24 Oath Keepers
who are part of this overarching conspiracy.
And while Stewart Rhodes is not named directly
in these indictments, he is identified as person one.
And throughout these indictments, you can really see,
as the government alleges,
this kind of leadership role
that he takes on the ground on that day.
[police siren wailing in distance]
[Dakota] Twelve months after January 6th,
facing negative press from both sides,
Stewart sat for an interview.
It would be his last as a free man.
[TV host] I kind of wanna just hear, like...
what your last six months has been like.
As expected...
except for all the demonization from the so-called right.
I'm getting people declaring that, "Oh, he's a fed,
he must be a fed, he hasn't been arrested yet."
So, it turns out the political right,
the media on the right,
everybody is as disingenuous and partisan and--
What's the right word?
Irresponsible, as the media on the left is.
And the people that read the media on the right,
everybody is non-thinking,
accepting of whatever they're being told
by their talking head.
-It's the same crap. Both sides. -Did that surprise you?
Uh, no, not really. No.
So, the narrative on the right is how you just laid it out.
What's the narrative of you on the left?
Oh, that I'm the bad guy,
at that I conspired to invade the Capitol,
and I'm the Grand Poobah,
and kingpin behind the scenes. 'Cause it's the big lie.
And the big lie is that there was some concerted plan
to enter the Capitol, there just wasn't.
At least, not on the part of any Trump supporters that I know of.
Certainly not on our part.
What I would tell your average leftist is,
I want you to remember what it was like
during the Bush years.
When 9/11 happened,
and the Bush administration began to set aside
the constitutional restraints,
like on detention of American citizens,
and torture, and everything else that they were doing
in the name of the War on Terror.
And think back to what you thought about it back then.
Quite a few people on the political left
were opposed to it, and so was I.
And think about the unease and fear you had
that that was being turned into a weapon
against political dissidents.
So, if they said you're a terrorist,
they can just whisk away your rights
and, you know, put you into
a whole different lower level of proof,
and lower level of everything and mess with you.
I think what they're doing to the January 6th accused
is very similar,
because they're not doing what's normal.
What's normal is you get bail.
Unless they can prove you're a flight risk,
or that you're about to go
and commit some horrible criminal act.
But they're just alleging these guys are bad guys
who may commit other bad actions based on what though?
Just the mere accusations,
'cause they walked in the Capitol.
And most of these people have no criminal record whatsoever.
Do you imagine yourself getting whisked away?
Like, are you mentally preparing for that?
Yeah, I'm ready for it. If they do it to me, I'll just...
deal with it. I'm ready for that.
In some ways, it'll help me.
It'll start knocking back this bullshit about me being a fed.
You know? Of course, they'll still say,
"He's still a fed," somehow. He's still a fed."
So... But actually, it'll probably improve
my standing in the patriot community.
Frankly.
[dramatic music playing]
[reporter] The Department of Justice
has filed seditious conspiracy charges
against a number of January 6th rioters,
including the head of the Oath Keepers,
Stewart Rhodes, who was arrested today in Texas.
The leader of the Oath Keepers
sits in jail on charges of sedition,
the harshest indictments yet
related to the attack on the Capitol.
[reporter 1] It's as serious as a heart attack.
I mean, seditious conspiracy is one step down
from absolute treason.
[reporter 2] Prosecutors are saying
this was something that was well planned,
and this group, the Oath Keepers,
were a key part.
The case of Stewart Rhodes,
according to prosecutors, he was coordinating.
He was giving locations to other people,
telling them what weapons to bring,
and helping to coordinate the assault
on the US Capitol.
[Tasha] Yep, kind of how I remembered it.
Bunch of Stewart's crap still.
"Oath Keeper's email alert list." [chuckles]
Um, well, this is the thing.
-[host] That looks bad. -[Tasha chuckles]
This is just the kind of thing,
when you're looking through bins,
you just have to be careful.
This is actually just smoke,
but you wouldn't know unless you... [chuckles]
You just never know.
There could be pepper spray or something worse or...
Oh, nice! [chuckles]
My wedding vows! [chuckles]
Wow.
This is something his mother put together.
[sighs]
Stewart had very little contact with his dad.
There was one point where the mother
sort of sent him over there as a teenager.
And Stewart wanted to learn about how to be a man.
His dad had been a horse trainer and a blacksmith.
He had done boxing, he was a Marine.
But Stewart said when he went there
to spend the summer with him,
he would just sit on the couch every day
and watch television,
and wouldn't even spend any time with him.
He did one boxing lesson and said,
"Here's how you punch."
He punched Stewart in the jaw
and knocked him out in the garage,
and that was the extent of their boxing lesson.
And then the way he turned out was just...
[sighs] He turned out the way he did.
[birds chirping]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Dakota] Far from being a villain,
when I was growing up, Stewart was the redeemer.
The man who would save America from the end of the world.
I was raised to be my father's heir apparent.
Stewart's wish was for me to be his mirror image.
A strong, all-conquering Renaissance man
who could outfight and outthink anyone,
except Stewart.
Built to reflect all glory onto him
as the source of my bloodline and all of its power.
[Stewart] And you can hear the camera guy saying,
"I see something."
[soft music playing]
[Dakota] The year is 2008,
and Stewart has just started Oath Keepers.
We, his family, are living in a rental house
on the outskirts of Las Vegas.
Oh, God! Stop it! Jesus Christ!
Our mom is homeschooling us, and plans had just been shared
that we would all soon be moving to Montana.
As Stewart saw, it was my responsibility
to protect the family from attack.
So, by this time,
I was mostly just doing training.
I was 12 going on 13.
My job had been to somehow, in suburban in Las Vegas,
learn wilderness survival skills and practical skills
for living in the bush...
for when we... moved to Montana
and started up our compound,
like right before the apocalypse,
whereas effectively Stewart was staying in Las Vegas
to make as much money as a lawyer as possible
up until the last minute before we left,
so that we could better situate ourselves
for the apocalypse.
We would play a game
where he'd be trying to train in situational awareness.
So, he would step back and disappear
while we were in a grocery store, and then...
circle around and see if he could sneak up on me,
and then lunge out from behind a shelf and scream,
"Stab, stab, stab," and pantomime shanking me.
And everybody would look and be like,
"What the fuck was that?"
If he'd been an assassin, I would have died.
The second eldest child is my sister, Sedona,
a fearsome fighter,
champion grappler, and martial artist,
probably the toughest of all of us.
She was the first to see through Stewart,
so at this point, she thinks he's full of shit,
and is saying it constantly.
The disrespect causes fights between us.
She's nine years old.
She's mostly found away from the house,
practicing survival skills.
She's annoyingly strong at those.
[Sedona] We had a lot of survival books laying around.
I read pretty much all of them, all the way through,
and I would go back and read them again
and use as many of the skills in there as possible.
Stalking up to animals.
A lot of it was just deer.
But sometimes, I'd also find more interesting things,
like... mountain lion tracks
that had a bloody trail behind it
that I followed for miles.
If I heard something, and...
certain kind of ways of doing it
to where I could kind of pinpoint
where the animal might be at, 'cause sometimes
they're kind of like ventriloquists,
and you can't tell where they are,
and they do that on purpose.
I stayed outside as much as possible
because Stewart's just not very great to be around.
So, he would say, If you... aren't always armed,
then...
one day someone's going to try to assault you or something.
He would be like, "If you have something on the side,"
he was like, "That's just an open invitation for them
to stab you with your own knife."
So, then he'd have a knife like this
that you can't really see it.
And then he'd have us practice pulling it out like this
over and over and over again.
You have to pull it out and hold it a certain way,
and make sure your wrist is straight and all this.
And it would take literally hours
to just practice one tiny movement,
until we got it down perfectly.
And we knew we have to get it down perfectly,
otherwise we can't go to bed or do anything else. [chuckles]
[Dakota] Despite his apparent deep understanding
of apocalyptic dangers,
Stewart's plans for Judgment Day had not come together well.
He had struggled to hold down a job with legal firms,
and we were constantly broke.
Red bills had been arriving for some time,
along with the threat of eviction.
Then, overnight, Oath Keepers swept us up.
As well as providing our family with a modest income,
it gave Mom something new to focus on.
[Tasha] I looked after the website,
did most of the writing and correspondence.
You had all these military veterans
from Afghanistan and Iraq who just wanted to be useful.
Stewart completely related to that
because he'd been in the army.
He had to drop out because of an accident.
He broke his back in a parachute fall.
A little while later,
he also accidentally shot out his own eye.
He didn't like talking about that in the public.
But leaving the military without really serving,
it left a gap in him,
which he felt he needed to make right.
[Dakota] By the time Oath Keepers appeared,
the US had spent the last six years fighting wars,
which many troops on the ground felt were unwinnable
or unjustified.
Many of these ex-military guys said the same thing.
The government had let them down and it could not be trusted.
So, Stewart's calls to respect the oath
spoke loudly to them.
Interestingly, after the Vietnam War,
the same thing happened.
Then two militia groups sprang up
with thousands of disgruntled veterans
looking for something to believe in and belong to.
Mom was so caught up with managing the first few days
of Oath Keepers as a blog that the power did get shut off.
It immediately turned into a phenomenon
that became extremely real, extremely quickly.
Seeing all of the things that Stewart talked about around,
like, the kitchen table suddenly becoming
matters of national news
validated a lot of belief systems
in the family home.
The greatest threat to our freedom
would be our own government.
And I hope every American is watching your show today
and realize now that we cannot depend
on our politicians in Washington, D.C.,
to keep their oath and follow
and defend the United States Constitution.
Right. Right.
[Dakota] I was extremely proud to have Stewart as my father.
My mom, especially, very much believed in destiny
and believed that she had been predestined
to support and assist Stewart
in doing something world-changing.
We are trying to prevent this country
from suffering the abuse and the violation of rights
that has happened in other countries in recent history.
-How so? -How so?
By keeping the oaths to the Constitution.
It's not to any one man,
whether he gives you a thrill up your leg or not.
-It's to the Constitution. -Yeah.
It felt...
sort of vindicating the way it took off
exactly the way he said it would.
Felt like destiny.
[dramatic music playing]
[reporter 3] The leader of the far-right
extremist group, the Oath Keepers,
is due to appear in federal court.
[reporter 4] After making more than 700 arrests
connected to the January 6th Capitol attack,
it now appears investigators are moving up the food chain.
[reporter] Rhodes has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing,
claiming he never told his members to enter the Capitol.
[Durbin] The insurrection should be a wake-up call.
A reminder that America is still confronted
with the age-old menace that's taken on a new life
in the 21st century. Terror from white supremacists.
[Dakota] After the attack on the Capitol,
many called the Oath Keepers white supremacists.
In the years that followed Obama's election in 2008,
militia groups grew by some 700%.
Barack Obama is the first illegal
that needs to be removed from the United States of America.
[crowd cheer]
[Dakota] But summing up the entire militia motivation
as white supremacy is missing a lot.
Stewart would call the racism accusation a lie.
His grandparents were Mexican.
Yet at the same time, he would appear
on conspiracy theorist favorite, Alex Jones,
talking about how terrible the Mexican problem was.
Look, you've had Mexican people waving the Mexican flag
and burning the US flag. That's not who we want here.
You could even deploy troops into Mexico, as Wilson did,
to go and hit them before they get to the border.
[Dakota] He would also gladly point out
that there are Black members in Oath Keepers.
I'm not gonna stand by while some white supremacist
is going around murdering people 'cause of their skin color.
I'm gonna fuck him up. I'm gonna smoke him.
He's gonna take a dirt nap.
And a lot of my guys feel the same fucking way.
Ask Whip how he feels about that. [chuckles]
[Dakota] Michael Whip Simmons was his head of security
for January 6th.
Like Stewart, he's also indicted.
[Michael] I got indicted like...
two days after I told his attorneys
I would take the stand for Stewart.
[TV host] Why did you think that was?
Um, you know, I can't say for sure.
Personally, they probably was trying to keep me
from taking the stand.
And so, they figured if they indict me,
I wouldn't take the stand.
I mean, if I take the stand while I'm indicted,
you give up your right to the Fifth Amendment.
So maybe they thought it was a good move.
[soft music playing]
[Dakota] Whip fits exactly the kind of image
that Oath Keepers wants to present to the world.
An all-American boy, wrestling champion,
signed up to the US Army,
served in combat in Iraq, and then left feeling betrayed.
I'm not a member of the Oath Keepers.
I'm just somebody who Stewart brought in to do a job.
For me, it just generated income.
But I could get behind what the group was doing.
I mean, I follow politics, but, you know, I don't vote.
You gotta understand,
nothing ever changes in the neighborhoods
or in the ghettos or what people would call
these "urban areas," you know?
Doesn't matter whose ass sitting
in the presidential chair,
nothing ever changes in the neighborhood.
That shit doesn't matter.
All these people talking about "The election's been stolen,
the election's been rigged," shit.
Talk to anybody from any one of these areas,
they'll tell you, "Elections been rigged forever."
So I don't vote. You know, that shit for what?
What's the difference?
What's gonna change where I live at?
[Michelle] It's too much.
Our government worries about keeping their own--
They're doing too much to their own citizens.
Way too much.
[Michael] It's all political.
[Michelle] That's why, you know what?
I don't deal with the political.
I don't get involved with it. None of that.
[Michael] Man, I got an email to go back to Iraq.
It's a government contract.
[Michelle] The same government that's trying to prosecute you?
Now, you gonna go work for them?
[Michael] It's just another job for me.
Stop going to war for them,
'cause they ain't going to war for you.
All they wanna do is keep people and they so damn dumb,
they keep their own citizens against each other.
So if something was to come to America,
we so busy fighting each other
that we can't even stand together
to even war nothing off if something was to happen here.
Let's look at the big picture. Who are we fighting for?
All this stuff going on with Trump
is a distraction of what's really happening.
Our government ain't never told us the truth,
-about nothing. -[dramatic music playing]
That's why I don't get involved in it.
I don't vote,
'cause they're gonna do whatever they wanna do in the end.
Nothing else that the government got theyself connected to
should you be involved in, nothing.
Nothing.
Find another job.
[Michael] Doing what?
Anything but that.
[Dakota] "Trust nothing and no one," we were told.
You might say that's understandable.
Stewart said under no circumstance
discuss what happens within our family
or home with anyone, not even another Oath Keeper.
In 2010, the place we called home
was about to radically change.
We moved from our small Las Vegas rental
a thousand miles north to Trego, Montana.
Montana has a few things that would appeal
to those who trust nothing.
Very few human beings live there.
The land is vast, so hiding is easy.
Those human beings who do live there
are often independent-minded and isolated,
more likely to keep to themselves.
Many come here to hide.
When we moved to Trego, that's when Steward began
to get into his defense planning phase.
It started with the escape tunnels.
Stewart had been for a long time very concerned
with how he would get out of being besieged by the feds
and very concerned with not being stuck
in a standoff situation with no escape route.
It was really before even putting in gardens,
the first major project that we embarked on.
[medieval music playing]
[Dakota] There were two sets of escape tunnels,
one that would be a long L-shaped trench,
essentially, in the ground,
dug with a backhoe and finished by hand.
That would be covered with two-by-four and plywood,
and tarp ceiling with rocks scattered over the top
and sod to conceal it.
And the way that would work
is a concealing shed would be put against one wall
of the house in the daylight basement,
covering over a ground floor window.
And the floor of the shed would have a trap door
that would drop into the tunnel.
And so, in the event of a federal raid,
everybody would be able to run into the basement,
file through this window, drop down into the tunnel,
grab a 72 hour go-bags...
and take off through this tunnel...
out to where it would drop into the tree line,
and from there, go into the woods.
If necessary, button hook around to cross the stream
further into the woods
to lose the scent of tracking dogs,
and then hike to a prepared getaway car
that was not registered
to anybody associated with Oath Keepers,
staged on a logging road.
And from there, take the network of logging roads out of Trego
to make our way towards Idaho or anywhere else
where there was a friendly support network
that could take us in.
[Tasha] Now, we're in the mountains...
-I can't! You're laying on it. -No, Dakota!
...and things did not feel right.
I spent my entire adult life being Stewart's wife.
Stewart's wife.
That's all anyone ever called me.
Lots of people never knew my name.
My kids had never been to school...
really never socialized outside of the movement,
outside of very controlled circumstances,
with Stewart approving of it...
with Stewart getting in there
and controlling the conversation.
And one of his things was all conversations
flow through me, through him.
And so, everything had to be sort of directed around him.
Like, all of us and the people
we were allowed to socialize with
were sort of satellites around him.
And so, what began to happen
is we began to be isolated in plain sight.
And by the time started thinking
this is terrible, I was trapped.
Stewart was king of our house.
Everywhere we went, people come up to you,
"You're so lucky,
so lucky to be married to such a wonderful man."
"He is on a mission from God."
[playful music playing]
[Dakota] While we were at home preparing for the apocalypse,
the Oath Keepers was blossoming into a large movement.
Thousands of new paying members were joining.
They came from all parts of society,
but many importantly, had positions of authority.
Police, military, even politics.
All bought into Stewart's apocalyptic worldview.
[Stewart] Your own government,
what they're going to do is trigger an economic collapse,
let people kill each other,
let them starve for three or four months,
let the cities implode,
and then come in like the cavalry and say,
"We're here to rescue you."
"Turn in your guns, you get a food cart."
"Turn in your neighbors, you get a food cart."
"Those crazy patriots are resisting us
"and shooting at us at checkpoints
are the enemy."
Now, I put my neck on the chopping block
and my family's neck on the chopping block
by starting Oath Keepers
and saying what I'm saying today.
I do it because I have no choice.
I do it for my children.
I am urging you to take this seriously.
[Dakota] Along with his dire warnings about the future,
membership continued to grow
giving Stewart more power and influence.
As a result, the Oath Keepers were making themselves seen,
helping with disaster relief.
They even sponsored a NASCAR racing team.
They also showed up at potential standoffs.
One such event was at Bundy Ranch.
Much like the situation LaVoy had lost his life for,
there was a dispute about federal land,
a popular standoff situation.
What we will do is we will stand and we will fight
and we will die if the government tries
to oppress the Bundys or tries to attack us.
[Dakota] Law enforcement was met with an armed camp
that grew larger,
more heavily armed, and more paranoid by the day,
and refused to stand down.
Fearing a drone strike against his men,
Stewart ordered Oath Keepers forces to retreat
into the desert and withdraw.
Following the incident, rumors started to spread
that he had been spoken to by the feds and threatened.
A real model citizen.
[Dakota] He never confirmed all of that to us,
but it's true that from then on in,
strange stuff started to happen.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Tasha] We could hear what sounded
like feedback in the house.
It was odd.
Stewart was convinced we'd been bugged.
But I don't know.
I think, really, for the most part,
I just thought he was completely insane.
Like the more...
Sometimes I'd have more of a moment of, like,
"Whoa, this is really bad."
[Stewart] The name of national security,
during the Quasi-War with France...
[Tasha] He became more paranoid
because he's this now supposedly famous person
that's running Oath Keepers.
The feds were gonna hunt him down
and kill him or something.
People are following what he says instantly.
People are gravitating to him like a sun, you know?
[chuckles] Like the sun is rising,
and they're gathering around for the warmth.
I mean, they're basking in it. And that's how it seemed.
I'm Stewart Rhodes. I'm the founder of Oath Keepers.
Everyone here who has taken an oath to support
and defend the Constitution, please stand up
and raise your right hand in the air.
[Tasha] But at the same time...
Put your right hand up if you swear an oath.
...his mental state really...
degraded, spiraled.
[Dakota] There's a certain point where things in Trego
really started to fall apart.
The supposed savior of America is nestled upstairs in the loft
where he's constructed a nest...
all the way around himself of piled survival gear.
And in his day to day, he was completely fine
with peeing in bottles
and curling up in his filthy blankets,
and occasionally...
wandering downstairs to scream at people.
Not showering...
not cleaning up his prosthetic eye
until the whole thing ruptured.
Everything you could imagine, he was letting go.
[Dakota] And hit the absolute peak of his isolation.
He'd slump over mid-screaming tirade,
and then an hour later come unpaused and snap awake,
resuming his tirade exactly where he left off.
But he was so incoherent
that there wasn't really anything to engage with.
You just had to wait until he was over,
like a weather pattern.
[Tasha] He had a huge meltdown
about two o'clock in the morning one night
where he drug everybody out of bed.
And Sedona said, "That's it."
I will not sleep in the house again
when he's in the house.
And she built a hut out in the woods.
And even when it was minus ten degrees out,
she slept outside.
She would heat rocks in the fireplace at night,
and she had a little pit inside of her hut...
and she would put these heated rocks in it
and put straw over it to warm her bed
and put a little fire that would go out by morning
in front of it.
And she'd sleep out in the woods every night if he was home.
And I worried about her freezing to death.
Sometimes it was so cold out.
She said, "I can't. I just cannot be in that house
with him. I can't."
You never know when he's gonna drag you
out of bed in the night,
and he's just screaming at the top of his lungs.
But he saw that as her embracing survivalist skills.
But honestly, she just sort of disappeared,
'cause she just felt like she had nowhere to go.
[Sedona] I saw my mom as scared also...
of the whole thing.
I think there's not much
that any of us could have done, really.
[dramatic music playing]
[Tasha] He would have these meltdowns,
and I would have to apologize.
[door slamming]
[gun cocking]
[Tasha] And then, he just drew his gun, you know?
And... [chuckles softly] But he didn't point it at me.
You know, he pointed it at the ground,
and he would rack the slide back
and look at it and make sure it was loaded and...
It was probably to be dramatic. He knows it's loaded.
He knows it's chambered. You know?
And then, he just plopped down on the floor
and pointed it at his own head.
And... "See what you made me do."
And so, this was something that was happening a lot.
Like, a lot.
And he would always say, "What are you gonna do?"
"You're gonna call the police and say I'm suicidal?"
You know, "I'm not threatening you."
[laughs]
Because...
he suddenly has more power.
I thought, there's really no way out of this.
How would we ever get out of this?
How are we gonna get out of this?
I think anybody looking at it would think,
"Oh, someone's gonna die."
"They're not all getting out of this alive."
[reporter 1] A tragic accident in Arizona today
when police say a four-year-old boy
accidentally shot and killed his father.
A tragic school shooting this morning in Perry, Iowa.
This is the second school shooting just four days
into the new year.
[reporter 2] Two people have been killed.
At least 13 have been injured.
[reporter 3] A Delaware County man accidentally shot
and killed himself while climbing over a gate
earlier this week.
[reporter 4] Police say the toddler picked up the gun
from her parents' nightstand
and accidentally fired that weapon.
The bullet grazed the girl's cheek
before hitting her mom in the back of the head.
[Dakota] No one outside America, and even some inside America,
understands our relationship with guns.
Our life with Stewart was full of guns.
We had about 60 loaded rifles stored all around the house,
so there was always one to hand.
As a libertarian, Stewart believed
that any gun control laws were against the Constitution.
Having lots and lots of guns
is completely normal for many libertarians.
[Dakota] Okay, libertarian. What is a libertarian?
-[epic music playing] -[narrator] From the dawn
of history, a better way of life
has been man's dream, man's goal.
A better way of life with freedom from the work...
-the worry, the hazards... -[groans]
...and in time, they formed a new nation...
dedicated to a better way of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
[bluesy music playing]
[Dakota] A libertarian believes in liberty for the individual...
political freedom,
freedom of thought, freedom of choice.
-Freedom is everything. -Uh-huh.
Freedom is the red line
worth defending by any means necessary.
This is why, for the libertarian,
the gun is such a fundamental thing.
No one quotes Marx more than American libertarians
reciting that political power flows from the barrel of a gun
for making society unfriendly to a military occupation...
or a police state.
[interviewer] You are promising America tonight,
you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.
Except for day one.
[Dakota] When Trump first stepped up to politics,
libertarians loved him.
He seemed to stand for everything they understood,
someone completely outside
-the political system... -[crowd cheering]
...someone who feels comfortable
putting the needs of the individual first.
But once he got into the White House,
we all witnessed his limitations.
For the Libertarians, this centered around
his lack of respect for the Constitution.
After January 6th,
even Stewart struggled to be convinced by him.
I think Trump is a buffoon, frankly.
I think he's an egomaniac, just wanted to be president,
and he got in there
and didn't know what he was doing.
Just straight up, okay?
He's not the sharpest tack in the box.
And he doesn't know the Constitution.
He has no concept of how it works.
He's in favor of stop-and-frisk,
in favor of red flag bills, you know, we'll do...
"take the guns now, worry about due process later."
The guy doesn't understand the Constitution, okay?
That's just the hard truth.
[Dakota] We should stop this here.
Now, this doesn't mean Stewart wouldn't back Trump.
He obviously still does.
People like Stewart will forgive Trump anything,
because he's on their side.
So, moving on.
The place of gun rights in the US Constitution
is the Second Amendment.
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed."
All Americans have a very strong view
about the Second Amendment,
even those that have no interest in politics.
You know, I kind of stray away from anybody
who kind of speaks against the Second Amendment.
I mean, you know, 'cause...
I mean,
who are you gonna depend on if you can't depend on yourself?
Britt, if you call the police, how long it take?
[Britt] Right now, I mean, in Dallas...
[clears throat] ...30, 45 minutes. Easy.
Now, think about this.
If I was coming to your house to do malice,
how much damage do you think I can do to you, your house,
and your family in 30 minutes?
By myself?
Think if I got two or three people with me...
you know, so, I don't get behind any gun ban
or any ban to restrict magazine capacity. For what?
You know what I mean? Like, I don't want a fair fight
if I gotta defend my life.
Like, shit, hell, I think every house
should have at least two guns.
AR-15, AK, shotgun, whatever you can get your hands on
to help better defend you. You know what I mean?
Hell, you don't want the fight to be fair.
You don't ever want a gunfight to be a fair gunfight.
Who does that?
Shit, if you got three rounds, or four rounds, or five rounds,
and I got 30, you should've bought more bullets.
[bluesy music playing]
[Whip] Now I'm indicted...
so everything has changed.
Generally, when you get indicted,
they treat you like you've already been convicted.
No matter what the Constitution says,
the DOJ don't give a shit about your constitutional right.
And it's generally for the safety of, like...
the officers coming to your house.
So, when I knew I was indicted...
took all my shit out the house.
I wasn't going to let them seize my weapons.
Some people might say... [chuckles]
...this is a bit excessive.
[stammers]
But, you know, it's a collection.
I mean, weapons are tools for me.
And, you know, I like collecting shit, too.
Like, I got a lever action somewhere.
One of these bags. Might be this one.
Yeah.
Well, you know, get my John Wayne on.
I mean, hell, man, I like...
I like guns, 'cause they're guns.
I like shooting.
I mean, it's a sport. It's recreational.
It's relaxing.
Hell, it's peaceful on the gun range.
You know, nothing but you, God, and the weapon.
I might have 20 or more weapons here.
[chuckles softly]
Like another 15 or 20 at the other spot
where I got my other weapons at.
Hell, there's ten in this box.
What, what'd they say? Pray for peace, prepare for war?
[bluesy music playing]
[train tire screech]
[Dakota] While awaiting trial, Stewart has been held
in a Washington, D.C. jail.
He's been sending out recorded statements.
[Stewart] This is Stewart Rhodes,
founder of Oath Keepers.
I'm speaking to you from solitary confinement.
I've been held in solitary confinement
for nine months now on 22-hour-a-day lockdown.
I only get out of my cell two hours a day.
Some of my co-defendants have been
held in solitary confinement for 18 months, awaiting trial.
You could look at the endurance of Nelson Mandela,
who was in prison for 20 years,
and he maintained his innocence and did not bend the knee.
So that's my model. That's what I intend to do.
Our show trial begins next week.
I do not expect a fair trial.
We will still fight,
and with God's grace
perhaps God can touch the hearts and minds of the jurors
to open their eyes to the truth
and give them the courage to do what's right.
God bless America.
[Dakota] In 2018,
in the isolation of our Montana home...
-[pensive music playing] -...we, his family,
had become imprisoned with Stewart,
along with his all-consuming,
ever-increasing amounts of crazy.
As per Stewart's orders,
we maintained operational security.
No one, even inside Oath Keepers,
knew what was happening in our home.
Alone in a house filled with enough paranoia
and weaponry to start a small war,
something had to change.
[tense music playing]
[Dakota] We had this plan fully developed
for a long time scale
before we started to think that our mom might be on board.
[Tasha] They brought me into what they called
their kid meetings,
and just sort of told me, "You got to get out of this."
And they could help.
Stewart was becoming increasingly unstable,
and was talking about moving us to Alaska.
So the worst-case scenario became, in the near future,
being in the hills somewhere, much more isolated
and much farther away from escape
than we were at the time.
[Tasha] It took me about six months to find an attorney...
because nobody wanted to deal with this.
In October...
2017, I finally found one.
We met with her, and we made a plan.
We jokingly, in kind of a fit of dark humor,
called it the "Trying Not to Die Plan."
[Dakota] We had set things in motion
that were not cancelable. My mom had filed for divorce,
and we had gotten the paperwork together
to file for the restraining order.
The retainer on the lawyer had been paid.
We'd been smuggling guns out of the house
to sell for the down payment on the attorney,
and for living expenses in the immediate aftermath.
And none of that could be taken back.
[Tasha] My attorney filed for divorce on February 9th...
and then we made a plan
to try to get out the night of the 12th,
because we thought there was a good chance
the sheriff would serve the divorce papers to him
that next day, is what my attorney thought.
And she said, you know, you make your escape and you go,
you file for the temporary restraining order.
So...
I did everything I could to get him
in the best mood possible.
The night before, we went on a little date.
We had a romantic evening.
[sighs]
Everything was set.
And I got really hit with this feeling of...
[sighs] "Why do we have to do this?"
Maybe we could just not do it,
and everything could just stay the same.
And I set the plates on the table.
And we had a normal dinner and everything.
And everything's going to change the next day. And I really...
I kept thinking...
"I hope we all live through this."
[foreboding music playing]
[Dakota] All of this planning that had gone into it.
And on the final day,
Stewart woke up at 4:00 a.m. in a manic frenzy.
So, at the time that we should have been
slipping out while he was asleep,
and doing the last loading of the truck before dawn,
Stewart was rampaging around the house,
frantically rearranging survival gear.
[thudding]
[Tasha] We were like, "There's no way
-he's gonna go to bed." -[glass breaking]
[Tasha] So, we just said, "We're going to take this
broken oven," whatever it was, "to the dump."
"We'll load it up in the truck and take it to the dump."
And we acted like it was just Dakota and I,
but the kids were all hiding in Dakota's truck.
[truck engine rumbling]
[Dakota] At the last second, Stewart ran out onto the porch
and started yelling from the porch
as we were pulling out into the driveway.
[Tasha] We thought we were caught.
Like, what do we do? Do we floor it and run?
But we didn't. We stopped. And he said,
"Hey, pick up some steaks on your way home."
[laughs]
And... "Okay, okay, we'll do that."
And I just drove out.
And...
I applied for a temporary restraining order.
I walked into the police department here,
and they said... [clicks tongue]
"Best bet, get back in your car...
go on back to your husband,
and pretend none of this ever happened."
"That's the best thing you can do right now."
"That's the best thing."
"We're not really equipped to deal with this."
"And you're in the middle of a divorce."
"A restraining order has to go through the court system."
"That's not something we can do here." [inhales]
So, they told me I had to go up to Libby,
which, you know, that's a two and a half hour drive...
over the mountains in February. [chuckles softly]
So, we did that.
And I went into the justice court,
and I filled out the form.
And then, they said,
"Yeah, this isn't going to work."
[chuckles] And so, then I went to the district court,
and I filled out their form.
And they said, "Well, we'll let you know."
Ultimately, the restraining order was denied.
When we did go back to the house,
Stewart was gone. He never came back.
But we felt scared.
So, we stayed up in shifts.
And we just took turns
guarding the living room with a rifle. [chuckles]
Like, I feel proud of myself for all of the hard work
that went into arranging that and facilitating it.
And I feel proud of Stewart's profound sense of betrayal
that he expressed to many people after the fact.
And I worked that angle. I would send him,
like, flattering, ego-stroking text messages
about the important work he was doing
and how I was praying that he would stay safe,
so that he would keep his mood buoyed up
while he was out on Oath Keepers operations
and stay longer with the bros and give us more time to act.
Like, I faked it...
for that two years. [sniffles]
and put on the world's greatest facade of being...
a true and loyal son, and true believer.
[reporter] The founder of the far-right Oath Keepers
organization, Stewart Rhodes has testified
-in his own defense today... -[soft music playing]
...at his seditious conspiracy trial here in Washington.
Elmer Stewart Rhodes is coming across as a smart,
articulate person.
He's trying to establish a rapport
and trying to tell the jury a little bit about who he is.
[Tasha sighs]
Well, him taking the stand makes me,
I don't know, it makes me nervous.
It makes me nervous for multiple reasons.
I know he thinks he can sway people.
He thinks he's a traveling preacher.
And he's going to... [chuckles] He's going to save himself.
Just trying to pick and choose what I'm selling in here.
I'm about at the end of things. I've got no child support.
So, I'm bringing in some magazines, and...
hope that'll bring in some money,
and going to try to sell some of these guns.
But honestly, they're just in such bad shape.
I don't know if they're gonna wanna buy them.
They were Stewart's when we were married.
Honestly, these are the ones he left behind.
[recorder beeps]
[Stewart] No matter how long they imprison us,
we will maintain our innocence.
And I think it's important for us to not give an inch
and to always maintain the legitimacy of a protest,
and the illegitimacy of this post-constitution,
fraudulent regime.
And you're going to face betrayal.
Christ was betrayed.
He suffered false witnesses.
Keep your perspective about your mission.
Do not give up is the ambition.
[Tasha] When you're trying to keep yourself safe,
and you're in a really unsafe situation...
it feels like you have two options.
You can hide.
And... you can hide and stay very hidden.
Or... you can be very, very out front in public
so that everybody's watching.
And it seemed like hiding wasn't really an option for us.
[TV host] My next guest knows the Oath Keepers
better than just about anyone.
Tasha Adams is married to
and estranged from Oath Keeper leader Stewart Rhodes.
Every moment he wasn't personally
terrorizing us as a family,
he was preparing to terrorize the rest of the nation.
He believes that he is sort of a chosen person.
And I think he believes
he almost has magical powers, so that he can...
[chuckles] He's chosen to rise up and be this...
what my kids mockingly call
"The King of The Apocalypse." [chuckles]
What do you want the world to know about him?
I want them to know he's dangerous.
He's a monster.
Every moment was about manipulation.
Every moment was about controlling the fear.
[bell ringing]
[Tasha] After they did a series of interviews,
I noticed a coldness around town.
Because I didn't just call out Stewart,
I called out the movement.
And most people feel very supportive of January 6th.
The cashiers weren't asking me about my day.
Maybe roll their eyes and just like,
"What do you want?"
You know, I turned my back on my husband,
and I'm supposed to be supporting him
in this difficult time, and one day I'll get mine.
So, I got a lot of messages like that.
I mean, he was digging tunnels to run from the feds
in my yard long before Bundy Ranch.
So, even the FBI asked me, like,
"What was he digging the tunnels for?"
"Who was he running from?" I have no idea.
I need him at least put away until the kids are safe,
until the kids... the youngest kid turns 18. That's ten years.
So, that's what I need out of it,
is for him to be put away that long.
[TV host] In court documents, it's noted that you testified
that he would often brandish firearms in the family home.
Maybe it's because I was born in Vegas. [inhales]
It's like betting on something, right?
I put it all, I bet everything
on him being locked away forever. [breathes shakily]
[birds chirping]
[solemn music playing]
[TV host] How important is the outcome
for how this is viewed?
I can't believe it. I think he's a true believer
that's been set up this whole time.
[reporter] This has to result in a conviction,
because much more than the law, we're talking about
a fight for the soul of this nation.
[Tasha] Notifications again.
[gasps]
Hey, guys, there's a verdict. We don't know what it is yet.
The judge says,
"We have received a note from our jury that simply says,
'Verdict reached.'" [sniffles]
Wait. Wait. Hold on. Are they reading it?
No. That can't be. Is that right?
[sighs]
[sobs]
"Stewart..." [sobs]
"Stewart Ross is found guilty of seditious conspiracy."
[sniffles, chuckles]
-Oh, shit. [groans] -[somber music playing]
[sobs]
The government's evidence showed that almost immediately
following the November 2020 election,
defendant Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader
of the Oath Keepers,
began planning to oppose by force
the peaceful transfer of power.
[reporter] The jury was told that Rhodes
desperately tried to get in touch with
then-President Trump after the 2020 election
to convince him to seize voting machines
and invoke the Insurrection Act to stay in power.
He needs to know from you that you are with him,
that he does not do it now while he is Commander in Chief.
We're going to have to do it ourselves later
in a much more desperate, much more bloody war.
Let's get it on now
while he is still the Commander in Chief. Hooah!
[reporter 1] "We aren't getting through this
without a civil war."
He said days after the insurrection that, quote,
"My only regret is that
they should have brought rifles."
"We could have fixed it right there and then."
[reporter 2] Eighteen years.
That is the sentence a federal judge
handed down to Elmer Stewart Rhodes.
In delivering the sentence, Judge Amit Mehta
said Rhodes presents an ongoing threat
and a peril to this country and to the republic
and to the very fabric of this democracy.
[dramatic music playing]
[Dakota] Shortly after his conviction,
we had the final divorce hearing,
and Stewart never logged into his Zoom link from prison.
With this one last no-show, my mom was finally divorced.
Freedom from Stewart released us, his family,
from his views,
although escaping the apocalyptic thinking
he drilled into us is much, much harder.
And apocalyptic thinking is now everywhere,
alongside newer, more extreme versions of Stewart.
You swore an oath
to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
Get your hands off the gun.
[Dakota] Like Mike Dunn,
who was only 19 when he helped to popularize
the militia group, the Boogaloo Boys.
-Stop pushing me! -[officer] You're pushing me.
[Alex] Mike Dunn is a well-known Boogaloo boy,
a constitutional adherent, 20-year-old former
Trump-supporter- turned-libertarian.
I guess he was in the Marines too as well.
-So, Mike, thanks for coming on. -[Mike] Thank you, Alex.
To start with, we see people like you, Alex,
who... used to be my hero as a young man,
we see y'all bendin' the knee repeatedly.
You have your talk shows, you give your speeches,
but y'all don't actually stand against tyranny,
and that's disheartening as a young man.
The idea that you portray and the message that you carry
-sometimes tend to look like... -[epic music playing]
...you're just there to create merch.
But your generation and the ones before you,
they put it on my generation's heads.
My generation didn't stand down.
It's the fact that you're doing the same thing
that's been done for years, and it's not
accomplishing anything. The only thing that's gonna
accomplish it is forcing a revolution.
I am not doing the same thing. I'm not Democrat, Republican.
I'm exposing the globalist program.
Do you understand that information is powerful?
They're scared of it?
You're talking.
That's all you're doing. You're doing the same thing
that's been done for years, brother.
We're done talking. We're done doing all of this.
We're going to go out there and take a stand next.
As horrible as war is, if they want a war,
let it begin with us because our fathers didn't.
No offense, Alex, but your generation didn't.
And so our children don't have to.
We see it as, there has to be a revolution.
[gunshots]
[Dakota] For Mike, the police are part of the problem
and therefore a target.
He and his group arrange protests
with the aim of provoking them into a response.
[indistinct chatter]
[Mike] We have one million police officers in the US
who are funded like a military, armed like a military,
equipped like a military, trained like a military,
and act like professional military units.
We might as well prepare for war with them.
They are the standing army
that our forefathers warned against.
Are we all in agreement that nobody gets arrested today?
-We all in agreement on that? -[man clears throat]
-[man] Absolutely. -[Mike] Good. So,
if a police officer begins to harass any one of you
or attempt to arrest you, I will put myself physically
between that officer and you.
At that point, if they proceeded,
a warning would be given.
And after that, y'all know that we will defend ourselves
within the protected rights enshrined in the Constitution.
Either we all come home or nobody comes home.
We've got several boys coming out
that have had their wills notarized.
I've written notes to my loved ones
and let them know where
to find them if I don't make it home.
And certain people that mean a lot to me
will receive notes from me if I don't make it home.
And... I mean,
as prepared as we can be, I reckon, so.
[Dakota] I could easily have been Mike...
had I followed my father's ambition.
[indistinct chatter]
[reporter] In a defiant protest against the arrest of four men
who carried firearms to a school board building,
the Boogaloo Boys assembled at the same property
with more men and larger guns.
They were effectively daring the police
to try to arrest them.
Ultimately, no police officers responded to the scene.
I figured the sheriff's office would show up a lot.
I figured they'd show up here.
Maybe they're just lettin' y'all be.
[bluesy music playing]
[Dakota] For Stewart, and maybe Dunn too,
an apocalyptic future seems to actually make more sense
than the one we are currently living in.
It's about control, security, and I suppose,
a fear of the unknown.
[Mike] Now we got a guy with a speaker and a microphone
coming up here.
[Dakota] But America is the land of the free.
What could be more uncontrolled or unknown than that?
[protestor 1] Mike Dunn, you're a shit-talking,
loud-mouthed little dumpy motherfucker.
Fuck you and fuck the police.
-Fuck the police. -Police are good, man.
No, they're not. No police are good.
All cops are bad.
-We're gonna have to disagree. -We're gonna have to disagree.
-But we all dislike Mike Dunn. -[protestor 3] Me and you
gonna have a problem if you say, "Fuck the police."
[protestor 1] Well, fuck the police, sir.
-There are good people here. -No, they're not.
-All cops are bastards. -[protestor 2] Where are they?
Where are they for this guy?
[protestor 1] Why are they not doing anything?
[protestor 2] Where are they here to get him
off the school property?
[protestor 1] Where's your cops doing something?
[protestor 2] Yet again, Mike Dunn
gets to break the wall.
-[protestor 3] Call them. -[protestor 1] You call them.
You call them. Your law enforcement is allowing
these men to stand on your school property with guns.
You think the police need to come arrest me for talking?
-Guys, relax. Smoke a joint. -[protestor 2] We love the cops.
And then Mike Dunn tells 'em how much he loves 'em...
[protestor 1] Don't tell me what to do. Fuck you.
..."Tyrannical government. It's a tyrannical government."
"We love you."
[indistinct chatter]
Well, I am happy he's exercising his right to protest,
and I support that 100 percent.
[protestor 1] Fuck Mike Dunn!
[Dakota] For Stewart, the future he seemed to want
actually looked a lot more like the past.
And I'm not sure that living in an imagined bygone world
where men are men would really suit me.
[solemn music playing]
[Dakota] Now, I can decide who I want to be
and what I want to believe in.
So, I've chosen to lightly engage with politics.
I'm doing some canvassing
for some Independent and Democrat candidates.
It gives me a chance to see
what people really feel about things.
[birds chirping]
[dog barking]
[Dakota sighs] Okay.
Nobody home, which seems to be...
I am showing up
when no one is home about three-quarters of the time.
Hello.
[interviewee] Take them Democrats and shove them
right up your fucking ass.
[Dakota] Do you want me to leave a flyer?
-[interviewee] Absolutely not. -All right.
-[interviewee] A Dumbocrat. -All right.
[interviewee] Bullshit.
[Dakota] Well, you have a good evening.
[pensive music playing]
[Trump] Take a look at your cities.
Your cities are going to hell.
You take a look at what's going on.
They're filthy dirty. They're crime-ridden.
And an entire generation of young people
could very well be decimated.
And it'll never happen with me, I can tell you that.
-It will never happen with me. -[crowd cheering]
And if I win, we will treat those people
from January 6th fairly. We will treat them fairly.
And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons.
[Tasha] I have definitely been keeping
the idea of a Trump victory,
not just in the back of my mind, but... [sighs]
...that whole idea is something I've been completely ignoring.
Yeah, the idea that he could be pardoned.
Yeah.
But if... You know.
That was a big bet, and I could still lose.
[Trump] Friends, delegates, and fellow citizens,
we will have an incredible victory,
and we will begin
-the four greatest years... -[crowd cheering]
...in the history of our country.
That sucks.
[Dakota] Stewart would most likely say
that him being a threat to us is laughable.
But after the years of apocalyptic anxiety
he drilled into us, it's hardly surprising we feel this way.
Even as a little kid,
I was extremely conscious of...
not having the connection that I wanted with my father.
When I wouldn't say the right things
or respond in the right way and he would get upset,
I thought that was something wrong with me,
and that just got worse with time.
It left me with a lifelong feeling
of being defective and inadequate.
I've struggled to make connections
and make friends and interact with people in regular life.
In point of fact,
for a long time, I was actively suicidal.
[foreboding music playing]
[Dakota] I looked up a chart of the exact angle
for shooting yourself with a pistol to make sure
that you don't accidentally survive
with a hole through the back of your neck
and a spinal cord or a brain injury.
And I saved that to my computer, and that was my plan
for the next step for after I made sure
that the rest of my family was okay.
Because I was so afraid of becoming like Stewart
that I didn't think that I was ever going to be happy
in life as myself anyway.
[crowd chanting] USA! USA! USA!
[soft music playing]
[train horn blaring]
[Tasha] I don't know what the future holds.
All I know is I won't run and hide,
and neither will my kids.
I thought, maybe I just need to start again.
And this sounds a little radical,
but I threw out everything I owned,
and I moved into a really generic Airbnb with two boxes
and a trash bag of clothes, and that's it.
And I never felt so peaceful because I just wanted to just...
not be this Tasha and that Tasha
and not be everywhere spreading myself thin,
trying to make safe spaces and umbrellas for everyone.
I just wanted to shut it all down
and just kind of restart.
And... Dakota's finally...
finding a place where he can be himself.
[music playing on radio]
[indistinct chatter]
[Tasha] And he can do what he's good at.
♪ I tried to tell ya Or she won't buy me ♪
♪ No rubber dolly ♪
[Dakota] Hey. Good to see you. Yeah, thanks for coming out.
All right, thank you all for coming out. It's...
It was certainly something opening the door
and seeing everybody in here.
A lot of you do know me,
but just briefly for people that I'm meeting tonight
for the first time, my name is Dakota Adams.
I am the estranged eldest son of Elmer Stewart Rhodes,
the founder and president of Oath Keepers
and one of the ringleaders for the January 6th insurrection.
And my family has been in the area
since we moved to Trego to wait out the apocalypse.
Hasn't happened yet.
I am applying to be your representative
in the Montana State Legislature
to extend the ideals of community service
and civic responsibility.
[crowd applauding]
[somber music playing]
[Dakota] So, this is the part of the film where,
with rousing music,
I emerge heroically as a Democrat.
I think overall I fit better with them.
What I believe in is collaborative government,
cooperative government
that is not some distant antagonistic force
strange to you but a structure put together by you, the people.
Stewart used to give speeches where he would say,
"Trust no one. In the end, you only have yourself."
But treating everyone as the enemy is exhausting
and just makes paranoia worse.
So, I choose to try and live my life without fear.
[Tasha] You're really good at this.
I hope so!
To engage with people...
and maybe use my experience
to help bring some understanding.
And whatever happens with Stewart,
this time, I'm choosing to live in a world
without the apocalypse as my future.
Until next time. This is Dakota Adams,
signing off.
["Ring of Fire" playing]
-[cameraman] Thanks, Dakota. -[Dakota] All righty.
Well, I hope you are happy with the footage.
I kind of think that I'm never going to put this on again.
I think I... I meant to have sold it.
-♪ Bound by wild desire ♪ -[grunts]
♪ I fell in To your ring of fire ♪
♪ I fell into A burning ring of fire ♪
♪ I went down, down, down And the flames got higher ♪
♪ And it burns, burns, burns ♪
♪ The ring of fire ♪
♪ Let me burn In your ring of fire ♪
♪ Look out, baby ♪
♪ And the flame went higher And higher and higher ♪
♪ Let me burn In the ring of fire ♪
♪ Let me burn, baby ♪
♪ The fire burns And the fire learns ♪
♪ Oh, I'm burning Away now, baby ♪
♪ Burning up In the ring of fire ♪
♪ Well, I'm burning... ♪
[music concludes]