Andy Rogan is a journalist who covers the radical left in Portland, Oregon. He was in the midst of covering a protest that turned violent when he was beaten to a point where he was left with a brain hemorrhage and lost much of his ability to speak. In this episode, he tells the story of what happened that day in the streets of Portland, and how the police responded to the violence. He also talks about the tactics used by the far-left counter-protestor group, Rose City Antifa, and why the police should have done more to protect the public from this kind of violence. This episode is brought to you by Micah Vellian and edited by Annie-Rose Strasser. The opinions stated here are our own, not those of our employers, and do not necessarily reflect those of the companies we work for. We do not own the rights to any of the music used in this episode. If you have a dilemma you want us to discuss or a general question you d like us to answer, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or visit bit.ly/support-suicidepreventionlifeline and we'll try our best to get to the root cause of it. Thank you for listening and sharing it with the rest of the podcasting community! Thanks for listening, and share it with your friends, family and family! <3 - Tom Bell Timestamps: 0:00 - What do you think of this episode? 5:30 - What would you like to see in the future of this podcast? 6:15 - Why is this podcast better? 7: What is Portland s role model? 8: What are you looking for? 9:20 - Why does this podcast should be more progressive? 11: How do you feel about the police response? 12:40 - What is the role of the police? 15:00 16:30 17:00 -- Why does Portland s response to this situation? 18: Is this a big deal? 19:10 - Why do we need to be a better place? 21:30 -- Why is Portland a hotbed of this stuff better than Los Angeles? 22:40 -- What is this a deal or not? 23: What s the problem? 24:00 | What s Portland s reaction to this? 25:40
00:03:21.000You have listeners and viewers all over the world.
00:03:24.000So Portland, Oregon is an extremely progressive city in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. And I call it a political monoculture because really it's...
00:03:39.000You're more likely to find open socialists there than you would find a regular Republican or conservative.
00:03:47.000And within this sort of echo chamber of just leftist politics, it's become also a hotbed for far-left militancy.
00:03:57.000So Rose City Antifa is, you could call it, the local chapter movement of Antifa.
00:04:03.000It's one of the oldest in the country.
00:04:07.000And they hold what you could call protests, but they're protests that always devolve into riots where they essentially take over parts of downtown and attack people, attack their ideological opponents, and do it frequently with impunity.
00:04:24.000I mean, I wasn't the only one attack that day.
00:04:26.000There were two other people who were bashed on the head and had very severe lacerations to the face and head.
00:05:23.000And the answer that I heard that day, as I've heard many times before when I've been assaulted by Antifa, is that we will not question, approach, or detain the suspect because this could incite the crowd.
00:05:36.000Okay, so this is why this has exacerbated, or this is why this has become such a big deal in Portland, because of this attitude?
00:05:43.000Because Portland seems to be the hotbed right now for this kind of stuff.
00:05:52.000I mean, who's the one who's giving the orders to the police to tell them to allow this stuff to take place?
00:06:00.000Well, I'm crowdfunding for the legal fund right now, and we are going to hold accountable whoever is responsible for dereliction of duty, where the evidence leads us.
00:06:12.000So, Portland has an odd governance system in that the mayor, who is up for re-election, by the way, is also the police commissioner.
00:06:55.000I'll name places that I've been published before I write, and I do video and I do podcasts.
00:06:59.000So my written work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, the National Review, Spectator, New York Post.
00:07:06.000I'm also on the editorial team of Quillette magazine.
00:07:09.000And one of my beats among several is about far-left militancy, particularly in Portland.
00:07:17.000To me, what I was noticing was that the national and local media coverage had a particular blind spot when it came to their coverage on Antifa.
00:07:28.000There was all this sensitivity to the quote-unquote far-right and white nationalism or white identity extremism.
00:07:39.000But they could not or would not recognize the militancy that was on the left.
00:07:44.000And Portland seemed to be one of the places for ground zero, particularly after 2016. We had very violent rioting in downtown.
00:07:55.000A segment of the population could not accept the election results in November.
00:08:00.000And so they did a million dollars in damage, setting fires and And destroying properties and businesses.
00:08:08.000And at that time, I was a graduate student working at the student paper, and I did a story on that.
00:08:14.000And I came out to witness, and it, you know, this was a major American city, but it felt like I was in Afghanistan or Iraq, just with all these fires and explosions and people running around with bats while masked up.
00:08:28.000And that was the first time I really became familiar with Antifa, and I took an interest in it.
00:08:32.000And I saw over and over that the media coverage was basically really sort of whitewashing them, kind of like referring to them as anti-fascists, giving them that propaganda victory.
00:08:46.000And Antifa as a movement, they're masters of doublespeak and disinformation.
00:08:53.000So it starts with the name Antifa that is short for anti-fascists, but I never refer to them as that because that's...
00:10:00.000But they started really escalating on the 1st of May, May Day.
00:10:08.000So this year was when I was physically assaulted by them for the first time.
00:10:15.000They were very upset that I... I wrote a story from the New York Post where there was a series of, and this is one of the other beats that I work on, is hate crime hoaxes.
00:10:28.000Portland earlier this year had this huge panic over serious allegations of LGBT people claiming that they were marauding right-wing gangs, driving around, trying to kill people with bats, with hammers, trying to kidnap them.
00:10:46.000And these were all rumors that were reported on social media.
00:11:05.000And I found that of the 15, only one was reported to police.
00:11:10.000And what was reported to police and documented in the report was entirely different from the GoFundMe, where over $10,000 was raised for this trans activist.
00:11:20.000She had alleged that one night walking home transphobic people had beat her with the bat and knocked her unconscious.
00:11:28.000Police reports said that she was extremely intoxicated and likely fell and there was no evidence that anybody had assaulted her.
00:11:36.000So when this story came out, because Antifa and the Democratic Socialists of America in Portland were really involved in peddling this hate crime fear in Portland, and I just kind of threw water on this panic that they had been flaming.
00:11:56.000And so on the 1st of May, there was a riot that I was covering and one of the masked people went up and sprayed me with, I think it was bear mace, some type of chemical that blinds you and burns you.
00:12:12.000So, there was no police that was there.
00:12:15.000I mean, that Antifa event was publicly advertised on Facebook and all that.
00:12:20.000So, over and over, Antifa is very transparent about their calls for people to come to their stuff and to engage in this physical confrontation that they call self-defense.
00:12:31.000And the police either stay away on purpose or are told to stay away.
00:12:40.000Because when you watch the videos, they're just macing people.
00:12:43.000They're macing people who disagree with them, like they're yelling at each other, and then someone will come along and mace people.
00:12:48.000And for the police to not step in and do something, I don't think there's another city in the country that would allow something like that.
00:12:57.000It just doesn't seem like it makes any sense at all because you're not talking about people that are being physically attacked and that are macing someone to protect themselves or even a threat of being physically attacked.
00:13:07.000They're just disagreeing with each other and yelling at each other and then someone will come along and start macing people.
00:13:15.000And I think there's also a real problem with people wearing masks.
00:13:18.000You know, whether their ideology makes sense or not, when you put people in masks, and then you have a bunch of people yelling and escalating, and then there's teams, there's Team Antifa versus Team, you know, anybody opposing them, they feel is a white supremacist or a Nazi.
00:13:35.000And this is just how they've chosen to frame it to dehumanize people.
00:13:40.000I'm sure you're aware of the girl who got maced in the face because she had a hat on that said, But it was the same color hat as the Make America Great Again hat and she got maced in the face.
00:13:50.000And she got hit with something too, right?
00:13:52.000Didn't she get hit in the face with something?
00:13:54.000Anyway, this kind of shit is really weird.
00:13:58.000It's really weird and disturbing to see these young people with these idealistic versions of what they're doing.
00:14:05.000I think a lot of the people that are involved in that really think they are fighting fascism.
00:14:10.000They really think that Donald Trump and the Proud Boys and white supremacists from Charlottesville carrying tiki torches that these people represent something horrible that's sweeping across the country and the young People today need to stand up and fight against this.
00:14:24.000And they're putting on masks and they're carrying backpacks and whacking people in the head with crowbars.
00:14:31.000And it's really weird that the city of Portland, or all cities in fact, haven't made some sort of a law where you can't walk around in public with a fucking mask on.
00:14:42.000Because that is one of the things that helps these people.
00:14:44.000It's the same thing that you see on social media when people are anonymous and they say the most horrible, hateful shit.
00:14:50.000They're saying that because they're not in front of you.
00:15:07.000Well, what that's about is you're getting away with being anonymous and you're getting support from all these other people around you.
00:15:14.000There's this mob mentality that takes place that's well documented with humans where when you get a group of people together and there's another group and it's like it's a tribal warfare type situation.
00:15:25.000And that's what you're seeing with Antifa and the fact that The Portland police have, I don't know what's going on with them, whether they've been told to not handle that, but the fact they haven't done anything to mitigate this is fucking, it's embarrassing.
00:15:44.000You asked about the mayor earlier and if he issued any stand-on orders.
00:15:48.000There's a statement that was put out after I was attacked by Daryl Turner, who's the president of the police union, and he said very clearly he called for the mayor to remove the handcuffs of law enforcement so they can enforce the law.
00:16:03.000And he accused the mayor of politicizing the police department.
00:17:02.000I recognize this woman from her activism that day as the person who sabotaged the sound equipment when James Damore came to Portland State in February of last year.
00:17:14.000That was an event that I was involved in organizing at Portland State University.
00:17:18.000We should just explain to people James Damore is the author of the Google memo that was talking about women in tech.
00:17:26.000Wildly misrepresented what he had said and people had claimed that he was this awful sexist.
00:17:31.000Even the CEO of YouTube said that he enforced harmful gender stereotypes where while he was citing evolutionary psychology and the Citing all these different studies on why women gravitate towards particular fields and even a page and a half encouraging or strategies to encourage more women to get an attack.
00:17:53.000But it was basically in response to things that Google had written.
00:17:57.000About dealing with the lack of women in tech.
00:18:02.000They were looking for a very particular answer, which was sexism.
00:18:05.000And he was saying, well it actually has more to do with the choices that women sort of naturally tend to gravitate towards.
00:18:12.000And he was saying that there was a way to possibly encourage women to get into technology, and he devised these strategies to do so, but was wildly misrepresented.
00:18:23.000And if you meet the guy, and I've had him on the podcast, he is a soft-spoken Sweetheart of a guy.
00:18:29.000He's not a misogynist, not a mean-spirited person.
00:18:32.000He was merely looking at the results of studies.
00:18:35.000And he was looking at real raw data and this real tendency that certain people have to gravitate towards certain positions in life.
00:18:45.000Yeah, so there were so many misconceptions about James Moore, which is why the student group I was involved in invited him to come.
00:18:52.000But Antifa and the Allies just could not take that.
00:20:37.000None of it came off as you supporting fascism.
00:20:40.000It came off as you, maybe at the worst case scenario, being a contrarian and not wanting to go with this sort of left-wing ideology that is so widespread throughout the Pacific Northwest.
00:22:01.000Because even though you seem like a very nice person, you weren't doing anything violent...
00:22:10.000You're supporting the wrong thing or not supporting them.
00:22:13.000Not just blindly supporting what Antifa is involved with, which is what – I mean, that is what fascism is.
00:22:22.000I mean, you can't even question some of the more heinous things – I mean, clearly heinous things – they're doing just fucking macing people in the audience.
00:22:31.000You may see people in the crowd just pointing it at people, yelling and screaming, hitting each other with things when you're wearing masks, getting involved in these brawls.
00:22:59.000When you allow a certain amount of violence and when you condone or don't do anything with violence that you can't defend, like violence against a person like yourself.
00:23:07.000I saw those guys hitting you in the back of the head, throwing milkshakes at you, just trying to walk away.
00:23:15.000Yeah, you asked me at the beginning, how did I get the brain hemorrhage?
00:23:18.000So, the video that's gone viral out there is actually the second half of the beating.
00:23:23.000I don't know if there's video of the first half.
00:23:25.000Hopefully, there is through CCTV or something.
00:23:28.000But the first, there were more hits to my face and my head.
00:23:32.000And so, when I went to the hospital, because of the nature of the contusions on my head, they did a CT scan in the ER, and that confirmed the subarachnoid hemorrhage.
00:24:50.000I mean, this goes to the bigger issue that I've taken issue with how flippant people use these accusations of not just racist or being Nazi or far right, but it's like, part of what makes Antifa so dangerous is that they feel that they are morally justified in their brutality.
00:25:10.000And they get, actually, a lot of morale from progressive and left-wing media.
00:25:17.000So, after talking about what the attacker would like to talk about, how the actual militant antifa people is very small, those who are going out and doing the violence.
00:25:28.000The larger group and those that I find more concerning, actually, are the nonviolent antifa.
00:26:10.000So there's the doxing, and then of course the punch the Nazi meme was meant to be cute and funny, but when they label such a large segment of the population as Nazis, it's...
00:26:21.000It's going after a lot of people who are innocent and law-abiding, such as myself.
00:26:27.000Well, they're also calling Jewish people Nazis, which is insane.
00:26:30.000And then, now more recently, the milkshaking, we've seen as this cute, non-violent form of political dissent.
00:26:36.000As you saw in the video, after I was getting beaten, I was trying to get away, and then they were pelting all these liquids at my head, and In my face, and that blinded me.
00:26:47.000I couldn't even see really which way to leave.
00:26:49.000So, to backtrack a little bit, sorry that I'm jumping all over.
00:27:21.000As soon as I caught my footing, the punches kept coming from every direction, and all I could see was people dressed in black with masks, and most of them that were hitting me had on these gloves that have the hardened knuckles.
00:27:48.000So, in broad daylight, in the heart of downtown, steps away from the central police precinct, from the sheriff's office, this beating happened.
00:28:17.000The fact that people dismiss this as not being a big deal is really horrific to me.
00:28:23.000The fact that the people that are in Antifa that are non-violent folks, which I think, I'm glad you brought that up because I was going to bring that up, that it's the extreme of the extremists, right?
00:28:33.000It's the people that think that That there's a call for violence and that there's a reason to do it.
00:28:38.000And even someone like yourself that is a nonviolent person is just there as a journalist.
00:28:42.000That there is a justification for just, for whatever reason you want, just go up to that person and start hitting them.
00:28:49.000Even though they're not a threat, even though they're not doing anything to harm anybody, even though they're not putting anybody in danger, they're just being a journalist and you feel like you could justify hitting them.
00:28:59.000I mean, there was this thing with Vox where Carlos Meza was Minimizing the impact of Antifa and kind of joking around about it and making it seem like it's just no big deal.
00:29:15.000And he got really upset because Steven Crowder was making fun of the fact that he's gay and the fact that he talks with a lisp and that Crowder mentioned that along with mocking his stance on Antifa.
00:29:47.000It's so ironic to call yourself an anti-fascist when you're literally enforcing your own particular ideology to the point of violence and you're wearing masks and you're running around hitting people and pretending that you're being inundated with Nazis and white supremacists and that this is all necessary.
00:30:06.000Like that old man that was just driving and they're directing traffic and forcing him to obey them.
00:30:12.000And then when he doesn't want to, they chase after him and assault him.
00:30:31.000If you're a person that really believes that there shouldn't be homophobia and there shouldn't be violence and there shouldn't be white supremacy, good for you!
00:30:39.000You probably got involved in this for all the right reasons.
00:30:42.000But if you don't recognize that someone like you, yourself, who is A person of a different ethnicity.
00:31:21.000What the issue is, is group mob mentality.
00:31:24.000When you get people together and you let them wear masks and you tell them that they're fighting against some evil, and then they feel justified in hitting a person like you.
00:32:09.000And there's some weird animal activity.
00:32:11.000There's some weird animal instinct aspect to it that is very unique to humans.
00:32:17.000And when you see something like this and see a guy like you just getting peppered with milkshakes and punched in the head, it's fucking disturbing.
00:32:25.000And for these people to dismiss that and not stand out, not stand up and say, hey, this is not what we're supposed to be about.
00:33:45.000Well, we've been seeing the build-up to this for years.
00:33:49.000Political violence coming from the left is seen as moral.
00:33:55.000And unfortunately, even those working in mainstream media have at times excused or found that type of violence good.
00:34:04.000I'm thinking of Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon at CNN. And I wonder if that played a role in why they were the only center-left broadcast news network to invite me on to speak.
00:34:20.000No other leftist center media has invited me on to any of those shows.
00:34:26.000When they had you on to speak, what was their attitude about all this?
00:34:29.000I think the host was very respectful and fair.
00:34:51.000I mean, this kind of encouraged me to continue doing my work months ago, even last year when I was getting threatened, because it seemed like...
00:35:02.000I don't think Chris or Don actually understand...
00:35:07.000I think they're ignorant about Antifa.
00:35:17.000I'm hoping that, like, even with my injuries, and some you can see, some you can't, I'm continuing to force myself to do all these media engagements because I want the needle on the conversations about Antifa to move,
00:36:25.000There's such a huge blind spot for far-left militancy, not just in mainstream media, but also in big tech.
00:36:32.000Do you think this is because Trump is president and because so many people oppose Trump as president, that the idea of far-left militancy is in opposition to what they oppose?
00:36:41.000So they feel like the enemy of my enemy is my friend?
00:36:48.000Eric Weinstein had a great point about this, and he said one of the real issues is the cowards of the left and the cowards of the right that are allowing the extremists to do the work for them.
00:37:00.000So when people see someone like the Proud Boys running around attacking people, even the Proud Boys, you have to realize that they started off as a joke.
00:37:08.000Like when Gavin McGinnis first came up with the idea of the Proud Boys, it was literally a joke.
00:37:14.000And it became an actual organization for fun.
00:37:18.000And then people joined it that didn't think it was a joke.
00:37:21.000And then people joined it and started taking it in a deeper and deeper direction.
00:37:24.000And he eventually disavowed himself and abandoned the group.
00:37:28.000I bet you see the same thing with Antifa.
00:37:31.000I bet the idea initially was, hey, we see these tiki torch carrying assholes in Charlottesville.
00:37:38.000We see that guy with the car ran over the girl who was a protester and killed her.
00:37:41.000Like, this fucking shit has got to stop, so we have to organize.
00:37:46.000You get people in masks, and you get people justified, and then you get people that support those people, and then you get the extremists.
00:37:53.000And the extremists who are not disavowed, who are not...
00:37:56.000There's no one speaking out against them from the left.
00:38:00.000There's no one saying, hey, this shit has got to stop because they want them to do their dirty work for them.
00:38:05.000They want them to push the envelope and push the agenda and get their ideology moving in the right direction, even if it's done through methods that they don't agree with.
00:38:18.000I see these people that are involved in this, and I know for a fact just by watching them move and interact with each other, they don't understand violence.
00:38:44.000They're more dangerous human beings in general.
00:38:48.000And I think that if this keeps happening and people from the right feel threatened and their lifestyle feels threatened and their ideologies feel threatened, you're going to get people meeting at these things and it's going to be more than just people throwing mace and milkshakes at each other.
00:39:02.000It's going to be people showing up ready for actual combat.
00:39:17.000If you looked at their core tenets of what they want to do and if they wanted to accomplish that through political negotiation and through conversation and rallies and speeches, fine.
00:39:57.000There's people that watch those videos, watch you get punched, and there is no justification for that.
00:40:02.000When you see someone like yourself who's a small person, slight in stature, not violent in any way, and you're not even swinging back.
00:40:10.000You're just taking it and trying to protect yourself.
00:40:14.000People get infuriated by that and there's people right now I guarantee you who saw that video who are thinking what I would do if I was there I'd fucking shoot all of them or I'd beat them all to death with baseball bats or I'd run them over with my car or do things and the Unhinged amongst the right who feel like this is a in opposition of their ideology They're gonna show up someday and when that happens people are gonna die and This is fucking terrible.
00:40:40.000And this is where the mayor and the police, they have not done their job.
00:40:44.000I believe the police, when they say that they've been handcuffed, and maybe the mayor just didn't have an idea of where this would all go.
00:40:52.000The mayor has been in office now for three years and he finally did a press conference two days ago, nine days after my attack, to address this controversy, right?
00:41:03.000And what was so frustrating is that the police chief had publicly stated that she thinks the city or the state should adopt a law that...
00:41:18.000Makes it illegal to wear a mask while committing a crime.
00:42:09.000And Portland is a harbinger and a warning.
00:42:12.000To what can happen in other cities when you have those in the upper echelons of governance turning a blind eye to far-left militancy and just letting these thugs go on the street and beat people.
00:42:30.000Just imagine if there was the case, if they were doing that about far-right militancy.
00:42:34.000Imagine if there were far-right people.
00:42:37.000Who are doing this and committing violence and the government was just like, well, you know, I'm not sure if they shouldn't be allowed to wear masks while they commit crimes.
00:42:46.000People would be freaking the fuck out.
00:42:48.000It's the weird justification of this stuff that's so disturbing.
00:43:57.000You live in some comic book world or some fucking Disney show world where you can just throw a milkshake at someone and they don't do anything.
00:44:03.000They're going to turn around and punch you in your fucking face.
00:44:11.000Or you might cause a giant brawl because people don't want to be hit with milkshakes.
00:44:15.000Or there's enough of you where you think you can get away with it.
00:44:19.000So you're an awful bully, and you're throwing milkshakes at someone because you don't like what they stand for.
00:44:23.000And you're meeting in a public place, and you're disagreeing about something.
00:44:26.000So to right this disagreement, you're assaulting people.
00:44:30.000Well, for that very reason, Antifa never engages in a quote-unquote fair fight one-on-one.
00:44:36.000What they do usually, as a group while masked up, one or several of them will distract the person either by speaking to them perhaps or blinding them with the chemical spray, and then they take turns beating.
00:45:22.000But I do know when you start hitting people in the head with crowbars, that is the beginning of the end.
00:45:27.000Horrible, horrible shit happens in response to that, and it hasn't yet, but this is 10 days ago.
00:45:33.000Who knows what's going to happen if there's another one of these rallies, and you get people from the far right who organized.
00:45:38.000This is when the Proud Boys really radicalized.
00:45:42.000They radicalized to go against Antifa.
00:45:45.000They were attacked, they attacked them, and then it became this fucking shit show that you're seeing right now.
00:45:51.000Yeah, I want to state for the record, though, the violence that happened after I was beat up was involving the men's rights activist group at Antifa.
00:46:01.000Proud Boys was holding, they held a separate event in a different part of the city.
00:46:06.000As far as I know, they did not, there was no conflict with them.
00:46:40.000What needs to be stated as well about, I guess, the right-wing movements that are in Portland or come to Portland to do these events, there's an element of being provocative as well.
00:46:51.000But that should never, ever justify the violence.
00:46:55.000Explain what you mean by being a provocateur.
00:46:59.000Well, for example, holding an event in the middle of downtown, titling it Justice for Victims of Domestic Terrorism, and then having a picture of Antifa.
00:47:20.000So there's an element of coming in and seeing, let's enrage these lunatics on the far left or whatever.
00:47:32.000But at the same time, I want to make sure I state that just because somebody is...
00:47:38.000Quote, unquote, provocateur in the words of the writing that it's unfortunate that people now find that that's justification for you to react violently.
00:47:50.000Well, I think, again, it's a small percentage of people that find this justification.
00:47:54.000When you look at the number of people that were there, what is it?
00:48:50.000And so, since this, has anyone from Antifa apologized about what happened to you or disavowed the actions of these few extreme violent people?
00:49:10.000Actually, in their press releases, you can call them, they explicitly state that Even, basically, even if you disagree with our tactics, you will not publicly state it.
00:49:22.000It's to create, I guess, this image of unity, right?
00:49:35.000In terms of Antifa, as we understand it today, really crystallized only after 2016. There's been very little academic research into how they actually organized.
00:49:45.000But basically, as a movement, they have essentially cells across the country that are semi-autonomous, united by an ideology of anarcho-communism and their support for violence.
00:50:04.000It's the people who are part of that movement are drawn from other actual groups.
00:50:07.000They draw from the DSA. They draw from various workers unions, other anarchist groups.
00:50:13.000And like other terrorist entities, they have processes to radicalize sympathizers, essentially.
00:50:25.000They have their own literature as well.
00:50:27.000And so it's much more organized than people give them credit for.
00:50:32.000They think of them as just, you know, people showing up to fight on the street.
00:50:37.000There's meaning to that violence and there's literature to back it up.
00:50:42.000And they actively recruit people to join the movement.
00:50:48.000So, I've been asked, do you think the federal authorities should step in?
00:50:52.000My response is, I think it's come to the point that they do, because with Antifa, it's beyond what local authorities can do, because a lot of these people...
00:51:51.000If the DOJ did step in, what do you think they could do?
00:52:00.000Do you believe in the ability to meet up and express yourself publicly and the ability to protest and the ability to just get together and have groups and express yourself?
00:52:20.000However, that's not just what Antifa does.
00:52:23.000Like I said, the violence is a feature of their movement.
00:52:26.000So what federal authorities can do— Can I stop you there?
00:52:29.000When you say the violence is a feature of their movement, do they have anything written, like the tenets of their movement, where they say that violence is acceptable?
00:52:40.000There's a book called The Anti-Fascist Handbook.
00:52:48.000He is, I would call him, one of Antifa's chief ideologues.
00:52:54.000So, not only does he explain what Antifa does, and in his writings he makes it very clear that the quote-unquote self-defense is what justifies the offense of violence.
00:53:09.000So, because he's an academic, well-spoken, he's invited onto mainstream media to explain, to basically, like I said earlier, mainstream Antifa.
00:53:23.000Yes, I highly recommend that people take a look at his book.
00:53:27.000The Attorney General of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, was photographed a year ago holding up that book, the Antifa book, and he's been criticized a bit for that, and he deleted that image after my beating.
00:55:56.000Yeah, the issue, like, fascism, as defined by political theorists who have been researching this for decades, it has a particular definition and meaning, and I think that summarizes it pretty well.
00:56:10.000I'm very concerned that people use it so flippantly to just refer to the right or to even authoritarianism.
00:56:17.000Like, there's much more to it than just being authoritarian.
00:56:22.000And it's important to state that Antifa is not just opposed to the far right or the right.
00:56:29.000They're also against liberal democracy.
00:56:31.000There's a reason why they hate the police so much, hate border enforcement, and hate the rule of law.
00:56:38.000They're against the concept of the nation state as we understand it.
00:56:43.000And they're working to dismantle that, to delegitimize it.
00:56:46.000So, this is what I mean when I say it's a dangerous ideology that for now, you know, enemy my enemy is your friend.
00:56:56.000But at some point, if this movement becomes bigger, more mainstream, and more people are sympathetic, at some point it's going to come back against the moderate left.
00:57:07.000Because these people, they want to see the destruction of the nation.
00:57:16.000They want to see the destruction of the nation-state for what purpose?
00:57:58.000So not just, you know, its institutions, the rule of law, but the state itself.
00:58:02.000Like everything just has to be broken down and start over because it's irredeemable.
00:58:08.000I'm not quite sure if, I mean, they've, you know, Antifa...
00:58:14.000I can't think of where they have had, if there's any somewhat comparable examples around the world of what it looks like for them to do state building, right?
00:58:24.000So we don't know what it would actually look like, but the examples we see from these smaller anecdotes is chaos and anarchy, like absolute chaos, and violent suppression of opposing views.
00:58:47.000I wonder, and what I've been asking over and over, is how many more people have to be drawn into, have to be victims of this violence before something changes.
00:59:00.000In Portland now, we've had three years of this, and literally no policy changes have happened.
00:59:07.000No even proposals have even been accepted by the mayor.
01:00:01.000Patriot Prayer is one of the other right-wing movements in and around Portland that have held pro-Trump events in town that Antifa comes to fight and oppose.
01:00:29.000It's interesting to see a city that's gone so far off the rails, like Portland, in this regard, with this issue.
01:00:37.000When you see this inaction, and what the consequences are, and how it happens, and particularly for a person like you, you physically see it, you personally see it.
01:00:49.000Are you going to continue to do these things?
01:00:53.000Because it seems like you're obviously a target now.
01:00:56.000When I was asked this in my interviews this week, last week, the response that comes to my mind right away is, of course I'm going to continue doing it.
01:01:09.000These people have threatened me before.
01:01:16.000But with the brain injury that they gave me, it's like, I can't continue doing it the same way as I did before and being naive to think that police would actually uphold the rule of law.
01:01:30.000They gave me a brain injury and like I never had one before but I'm dealing with some cognitive and neurological issues.
01:01:39.000Memory issues, I have upcoming neurophysical therapy as well as speech therapy.
01:01:45.000So as much as on the surface I have improved a lot since the beating, there are some long-term consequences that I'm going to have to work through.
01:01:59.000You know, I have, to be honest, I have certain fears and anxieties of being in Portland.
01:02:05.000I've continued to receive threats, violent threats, and they've been reported to police and just people promising to make sure next time that I won't even be able to walk away, that they will repeat what happened to me when they see me on the streets.
01:02:18.000Have they caught the people that did this to you?
01:02:21.000So it's been more than 10 days since my beating.
01:03:05.000Yeah, so moving forward, once I feel well enough and once I'm cleared by the doctors, it may be worth it to cover these events but with professional security.
01:03:41.000But it seems like you've been singled out and targeted, and it seems like they don't have any problem justifying attacking you and assaulting you.
01:03:48.000If I was going to go, I'd bring the biggest, baddest dudes that I could find.
01:04:02.000I think it's this one particular area, and this one particular group, and not even the group.
01:04:07.000I think it's the most ridiculous people in that group.
01:04:12.000I think most of these people that probably are a part of this really don't want fascists.
01:04:16.000And they really don't want some awful right-wing totalitarian regime running this country and marginalized people of color, gay people and immigrants and all those things that I support 100%.
01:05:07.000Yeah, so these are the points that I'm trying to hit on.
01:05:10.000Those are the points that are hidden, right?
01:05:12.000These are important things that make up the ideology of ANTIFA. And the larger, those who are sympathetic because of the anti-fascist aspect or the anti-right wing, they are ignorant of it.
01:05:26.000And I hope to become more aware of that.
01:05:28.000I think that's what's important about your work.
01:05:30.000That's what's important about these discussions.
01:05:32.000That's what's important about people getting the word and understanding what this really means, not what it seems on paper.
01:05:39.000It's like, we're the anti-Nazi movement.
01:05:41.000Well, who the fuck could go against that?
01:05:58.000I don't think they're deep diving and understanding the ideology at its core, the way you're describing it.
01:06:03.000And whoever that professor was that you were discussing that is somehow or another Condoning violence, that is ridiculous.
01:06:12.000Anyone who considers themselves an intellectual who condones violence, all this punch-a-Nazi stuff, goddammit, you don't understand violence.
01:06:22.000You don't know what you're talking about.
01:06:24.000You don't understand the human condition, because if you understood violence, it's the last thing you would ever be calling for.
01:06:30.000Can I talk about the next step of what's next for me?
01:06:34.000So a lot of people listening and are frustrated and have expressed support are asking, well, what can I do?
01:11:26.000Is this necessary to go to these things to cover them?
01:11:31.000Do you think maybe that's part of the problem with people like Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo who are talking about this who haven't actually been there?
01:11:39.000They really don't understand it and maybe you do because you're covering it with boots on the ground?
01:11:44.000When you're all the way in New York City and you work for elite media and you always even when you travel to protests you have a very large crew of security around you It removes you a bit from the reality of the situation.
01:11:58.000And I don't think any of these people who are opining on these mainstream media television shows have actually embedded themselves to covering these violent riots that are happening in Portland or in Berkeley.
01:12:16.000How many of the people that are involved in Antifa do you think really understand...
01:12:23.000That they're trying to dismantle the government.
01:12:25.000Really understand that they want the state to dissolve.
01:13:15.000Where are the businesses that are helping them fund some of their causes?
01:13:19.000Because when some of their members get arrested, they have money for bail.
01:13:24.000Who's involved in funneling that money?
01:13:29.000Who's helping to disperse their literature that they use to radicalize people?
01:13:34.000This requires research and intelligence gathering, and as far as I know, it's not being done.
01:13:40.000There's a real concern among some people that we're entering a phase of this country where there's a real possibility Of having some sort of a civil unrest, civil war.
01:13:55.000When you see something like these Portland events, when you see this kind of chaos, do you think that's a valid concern?
01:14:07.000Not for something that is across the country but perhaps very regional or to the city itself.
01:14:14.000And not so much like civil war but the violence that is done and planned by Antifa is meant to make the wider public not just polarize and hate each other but also begin to distrust the institutions that are in place that are meant to uphold democracy.
01:14:36.000So, the police in Portland have come under fire, for example, not just from the radical left, but a lot of people who are normally very pro-police are finding like, what is wrong with the Portland police?
01:15:04.000And you think this is particularly unique to Portland in the way they're treating and addressing it?
01:15:10.000I'm trying to think of comparable other cities that have had some of these issues.
01:15:31.000Citizens in the way of danger, the way they were funneled outside of this event led them directly in front of these violent protesters who attacked them, you know, in those footage that went viral that year.
01:15:45.000Since then, policing tactics have changed in San Jose, as far as I know, and, you know, involved the lawsuit.
01:15:54.000So, like, sometimes it takes lawsuits for...
01:16:01.000The local government to start protecting people's civil rights.
01:16:04.000So right now, as bad as it is, it does seem confined to Portland.
01:16:10.000We haven't seen, for example, in Berkeley, the type of violence in 2017 when Milo came.
01:16:17.000That hasn't been repeated for a year and a half now.
01:16:35.000Well, immediately right now, what I would like to see is the city of Portland carry out a full investigation and hold accountable all those who were involved in attacking me or aided in that as well.
01:16:46.000And then, where the evidence leaves, if this shows that there was dereliction of duty from those in power, then...
01:17:01.000My lawyer reserves judgment for who, if anyone, gets sued at that point.
01:17:06.000But right now, I'm very focused on seeing that and putting pressure on the city to arrest people who are responsible and charge them and get convictions as well.
01:17:18.000Alright, in closing, because I know you've got to get out of here, is there a silver lining to any of this?
01:17:22.000I mean, do you think that perhaps your assault and the fact that the police didn't intervene is actually allowing people to understand the real significance of this, the real problem of this, that this is a real issue,
01:17:38.000a gigantic one, in fact, that goes against the core tenets, the value of free expression and the ability to gather and communicate safely in public?
01:17:48.000As hard as it was for me to see a silver lining when I was laying in hospital with so much pain, there is one.
01:17:58.000And that is that everybody paid attention to what happened to me.
01:18:05.000Even the mainstream liberal press could not ignore it.
01:18:09.000And I'm hoping that from that, it goes beyond just being a headline, but forcing the national discourse to change on how it views and talks about Antifa.
01:18:22.000I feel encouraged that we're beginning to see some cracks in the way that Antifa has been protected by sympathetic writers and journalists and those in mainstream media.
01:18:34.000I mean, the fact that Keith Ellison deleted that photo that he showed a year ago, right after it was attacked, I think indicates that even he faces a certain pressure that it may not be good for a mainstream politician to so actively promote this movement.
01:18:54.000And I hope it continues to move in that direction.
01:18:56.000If you had a crystal ball and you were looking at the future, what do you think you would see?
01:19:04.000Well, based on the press conference that the mayor did two days ago, him not having any proposals, it seems like more violence has to happen.