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Hosts Anne Applebaum and Peter Pomerantsev talk with Hanna Rosin about the new series We Live Here Now. Rosin, along with her co-host, Lauren Ober, recently found out that their new neighbors moved to Washington, D.C., to support January 6 insurrectionists. Rosin and Ober decided to knock on their neighbors’ door. We Live Here Now is a podcast series about what happened next. Subscribe to We Live Here Now here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | iHeart

The following is a transcript of the episode:

Anne Applebaum: This is Anne Applebaum.

Peter Pomerantsev: And this is Peter Pomerantsev, and we’re here with a guest today, The Atlantic’s Hanna Rosin.

Hanna Rosin: Hi.

Applebaum: And although our series, Autocracy in America, has wrapped up, there is still a lot to do and think about ahead of the 2024 election.

Pomerantsev: Hanna is the host of The Atlantic’s weekly show called Radio Atlantic, and she’s also just released a new podcast called We Live Here Now, a series.

Rosin: Yeah, We Live Here Now is the story of my partner, Lauren Ober, and I discovering that we had some new neighbors, and it’s about our effort to get to know these neighbors. And it turned out, those neighbors were supporting the January 6 insurrectionists.

Pomerantsev: At the end of this episode, we’ll include the entire first episode for listeners to hear. But we want to start with a little clip that gives you a sense of what first launched them into making the series.

Lauren Ober: I guess it started just like any other dog walk. Hanna and I leashed up our pups and set out from our house on our post-dinner stroll. It was early November of 2023, and I remember it was unseasonably warm. We headed off down the hill from our house towards our neighborhood park.

Rosin: A block past the park, Lauren spotted it: a black Chevy Equinox with Texas plates we’d seen parked around the neighborhood. Just a basic American SUV. Except for the stickers that covered the back windshield.

Ober: Stickers we’re very much not used to seeing in our mixed-race, mixed-income neighborhood. Our vibe is more like, Make D. C. the 51st state and No taxation without representation. These stickers were a combo platter of skulls and American flags. There was a Roman numeral for three, the symbol of a militia group called the Three Percenters, and the pièce de résistance, a giant decal in the center of the back window that read Free Our Patriots, J4, J6. Meaning, Justice for January 6.

Rosin: Lauren notices every new or different thing in the neighborhood. And this car was definitely different. As we walked past it, Lauren said what she always said when we saw this car.

Ober: “There’s that fucking militia mobile again.” Right after I said that moderately unneighborly thing, the passenger-side window rolled down. Cigarette smoke curled out of the car. And the person inside shouted, “Justice for J6!”

Rosin: To which Lauren said—

Ober: “You’re in the wrong neighborhood for that, honey.” And then the woman in the car said words I’m not gonna forget anytime soon: “We live here now. So suck it, bitch.”

Applebaum: Hanna, I’ve had confrontation experiences myself.

I was once at a dinner in Poland—this is a couple years ago—with old friends who suddenly started repeating a conspiracy theory about the government, and it happened to be the government that my husband had been part of. And I tried to listen politely and go like, Uh-huh, yeah, that’s true, yeah, sure. And then eventually I left the room.

Rosin: Uh-huh.

Applebaum: And I’m not sure I could have lasted even that long with people who weren’t old friends and were doing the same thing. So we’re not going to talk all about We Live Here Now, since many listeners may not have yet heard the podcast, but I do want you to tell me a little bit more about that experience of being shouted down in your neighborhood—or, more accurately, being with your partner as she was being shouted down. Were you never tempted to argue back?

Rosin: Yeah, I mean, I really think it’s an accident of how the interaction happened. If it had happened at dinner, I guess you can temper yourself, like you just described. You could never see these people again. Like, you could ignore them or shout them down and then choose to never see them again. But because these people lived a couple of blocks away, I sort of knew I was going to see them a lot. So maybe that muted my reaction. My partner doesn’t have a mute button, but I just kind of knew that I better take a step back and think about what I want to do, because I was going to run into these people who, you know, happen to have militia stickers and are seemingly aggressive. So I just kind of needed a minute to think what I wanted to do. Without that pause, I’m not sure this story would have happened in the way that it happened.

Pomerantsev: And how did you build the relationship with them? I mean, was it, was there any kind of discomfort or danger involved when you first met them? And then, but most importantly, how did you build trust? I mean, how would they learn to trust you?

Rosin: You know, it’s interesting. Once you decide to step into an alternative world, it’s almost like you have to make the decision. Most of the time, we just don’t make that decision. We’re like, This is cuckoo. I’m not going. I don’t share anything in common with these people. Like, we don’t even have a shared set of facts in the way we might have 15, 20 years ago. So there’s just—like, there’s no beginning to this relationship. For whatever reason, we closed our eyes and decided to step into that alternative reality. And once you make that decision, you just do it very, very, very gingerly.

In this case, they happen to do a public event, which we knew was happening every single night, and it’s out on a street corner in D.C. And it’s public space. So that actually gave us the freedom to show up at this public event. It’s outside the D.C. Jail, and they’re in support of the January 6 prisoners. The detainees are all held in a segregated wing of the D. C. Jail, so they hold a protest every single night at the exact same time. So you know, you can steel yourself up every night and say like, Okay, tonight’s the night I’m going to go to the vigil, you know?

Applebaum: Can I actually ask you some more about that vigil? Because one of the things We Live Here Now does, it explores the way in which people can rewrite history, which is one of the things that happens. And you talk about how at the vigil, there are posters with faces of people who died on January 6. And each poster reads Murdered by Capitol Police, even though only one person was found to have died from a bullet fired by the police, And so there’s now a narrative that the people in jail are the good guys and the people outside of jail are the bad guys. I actually spent 20 years writing books about the history of the Soviet Union, and this is very much what autocratic regimes do: They change the way you remember history. They make heroes out of villains, and vice versa. And how, how did you see that happening and how did you come to understand how it worked? Why was it successful among the people that you were visiting?

Rosin: Well, that was one of the most remarkable experiences I had—is being that close to watching revisionism happen. Like, the nitty-gritty, going back and time and, Okay, when was the first time that Trump mentioned Ashli Babbitt?, who is the woman who was shot by the Capitol Police officers? Because initially, right after January 6, many—even Trump supporters—said, you know, The Capitol Police officer did a good job. You know, He did his duty. It was a terrible day. Like, if you look at things that happened in early January, everybody was sharing the reality of what happened on January 6. And then you watch how, slowly, kind of people peel away from that reality. Trump starts trying out lines at his rallies. Oh, Ashli Babbitt was murdered. He uses the words, “they,” a lot. You know, they killed Ashli Babbitt. They did this. And at that point, the Big Lie—the lie that the election was stolen—could have faded away, like it felt like a moment where it could have just been relegated to history, and then it’s like, all of a sudden, there’s this collective decision, Oh no, we’re going to revive this. And the way we’re going to revive it is by talking first about this martyr, and then about this group of people, and suddenly black is white and white is black.

And because these people who we got close to, they’re sort of innocents in this narrative. One of the main characters is Micki Witthoeft, who’s the mother of Ashli Babbitt. And just think about that. She’s a grieving mother. It’s as if her emotional-grief reality starts to align with Trump’s messaging in this perfect storm, and then all of a sudden, things that aren’t true seem, not just true, but righteous.

Pomerantsev: Tell me a bit about the myth, though, because on the one hand, it’s an alternative reality, which you described so well just now, but on the other hand, isn’t it quite American at the same time? I mean, I love when you talk about, you know, how they describe themselves as “saving democracy.” They’re the true patriots. I mean, as you encountered it, did you find it completely alien myth or something that actually sort of resonated with so many American stories about themselves: rebelling against Washington, the whole—

Rosin: Yes, I mean, one thing that I came to feel about the January 6 detainees, like, often it would pop into my head: them in costume, like, Okay, they’re, they’re sort of role-playing 1776 here, you know. Particularly, one of our episodes is about a jury trial. My partner was very randomly called onto a jury, as many people in D.C. are, and it happened to be a January 6 case. And not only that, but it happened to be one of these January 6 cases in which you feel that someone just kind of lost it for a day. You know, it’s a dad; he has five children; by a judge's count, extremely law abiding; been married for a long time. But then during that day, just kind of, you know, went nuts.

And as you get closer to what they did that day, you do feel like there was just a rush, like a rush of sort of feeling heroic, you know, feeling patriotic, feeling like you were saving the country, feeling like you have this incredible mission. And then I think, one thing that nobody predicted is that they did keep these guys in a segregated wing of the D.C. Jail, together. We don’t usually do that. I mean, Gitmo is the other place where we’ve done that. But the D.C. Jail is largely Black. And so these guys had a reputation at that day, if you remember, as being white supremacists, so they did not want to throw them into the D.C. Jail. But the result of keeping them together, I mean, you can imagine what happened.

Applebaum: So this is exactly the thing that I wanted to ask you about. I was very struck by one of the characters who you interview and describe. This is Brandon Fellows, who was a guy who was almost accidentally caught up in January the 6th. He entered the Capitol. He wound up smoking a joint in one of the offices in the Capitol. As a result, he was arrested. And because he was part of this group of prisoners, he was essentially radicalized. And that story of how the prisoners together radicalized one another, created a mythology around themselves, it reminded me of so many other moments in history when that’s happened, I mean, for both good and for bad. The IRA in British prisons radicalized; um, various jihadis and various prisons around the world are said to have radicalized that way too. But also the ANC in South Africa, who were together in a prison on Robben Island for many years. I mean, that’s how they created their cohesive movement. So it can work positively too. Weren’t you tempted to try and talk him out of it, where you—did you not want to say, “Don’t you see what’s happening to you?”

Rosin: Yeah, I mean, with him, that instinct was very powerful because, you know, he’s slightly older than my oldest child. And so I—so in his case, I did have the instinct of, like, trying to shake this out of him.

Like, “Don’t you see?,” like “You were in this—you were in this jail,” you know, and he was in this jail. He came in as a goofball. Then he came to see these guys as, like, fierce and tough. And by the end, he came to see them, as you said, Peter, as true patriots, so it’s not just that they were tough guys. It was like they were true and righteous and the next generation of founding fathers and he was just like, Nope, like you just don’t, you don’t get it. I’m deadly serious here.

Pomeranstev: So you didn’t build a coalition with them, you didn’t convince them, you don’t try to convince them to change parties. But you spent a year with them. What is it that you found meaningful in that interaction? And why is it meaningful for all of us to hear about it? I mean, it’s fascinating, but also what is the importance of doing something like this?

Rosin: I can only tell you about a limited importance, which is that over the last few years, I’ve started to read—as I bet you guys have—you know, what do you have, like, we all throw up our hands: We’re so polarized. We’re not even living in the same reality. We can’t talk to each other.

You cannot go into a conversation, as much as you deeply, deeply want to, with the intention of changing the other person’s mind. That is a losing strategy. Don’t do it. It’s so hard. It’s as hard in politics as it is in a relationship. It’s very hard because we all just want to do that. And so your only option is to just open your mind, hear what they have to say, be curious, ask questions, and that’s it.

Applebaum: And how do you do that without becoming angry?

Rosin: It’s— [Laughs.] I mean, that’s your, they just, because I’ve been to enough couples therapy [Laughs.] that it’s like, that’s your only option. And you almost have to do it with a leap of faith that there’s something human at the end of that.

Pomerantsev: So the meaning, in a way, is learning to just behave and interact in a different way.

Rosin: There are surprising kind of moments of non-nastiness that arise when you approach the world from that perspective.

Pomerantsev: I mean, I spend a lot of my time writing about propaganda and talking to people with all sorts of deeply warped beliefs, and at one point I realized that the only worthwhile question I could ask that would lead to a conversation that was human was, How did it start? How did you start believing in X?

Rosin:Yes.

Pomerantsev: And then you’d always get a very personal story.

Rosin: Yes.

Pomerantsev: Usually about some sort of trauma. I’m not saying that’s any kind of excuse, but it suddenly became a human story about how someone is making sense of the world.

Rosin: Yes.

Pomerantsev: And suddenly there was a person. Again, I never changed them. They’re still gonna do horrible things, but at least I knew they were a person. I don’t know. Maybe, in the long run, that helps us come up with better strategies to deal with it. But not immediately. It’s not a like aha moment.

Rosin: Yeah. It’s not a kumbaya. It’s just like, it really is a leap of faith ’cause as you’re doing it, you feel, Am I doing something dangerous? Like humanizing this propaganda? Like, Is this wrong, what I’m doing? And you just kind of live with that doubt and you keep asking questions, you know?

Pomeranstev: Yeah. But humans do lots of bad things. Humanizing doesn’t mean making it good; it just makes it human. You know, that doesn’t—it's like, Ooh, humanizing. Yeah, I think maybe the word humanizing needs to lose its positive aura. Humans are pretty awful.

Rosin: That’s a pretty good idea.

Pomeranstev: But they are human. [Laughs.]

Rosin: So what is the point of humanizing if you remove the positive aspects? Humanizing is good because …

Pomerantsev: You start to see the challenge for what it is rather than something esoteric. You know, it’s a real person doing real things. Therefore we can deal with it.

Applebaum: Hanna Rosin is the co-host along with Lauren Ober of the new six-part podcast series from The Atlantic called We Live Here Now. Find We Live Here Now wherever you listen to podcasts.

Pomerantsev: And we have the first episode here. Keep listening and, Hanna, thanks for talking with us today.

Rosin: Thank you both.

[We Live Here Now Episode 1: “We’re Allowed to Be Here”]

Lauren Ober: When the neighbor incident first happened, it didn’t really feel much like anything. Or maybe we were both too stunned to take it all in.

Hanna Rosin: It wasn’t until we started telling other people the story and they reacted that it began to feel like maybe we’d discovered something.

Ober: I guess it started just like any other dog walk. Hanna and I leashed up our pups and set out from our house on our post-dinner stroll. It was early November of 2023, and I remember it was unseasonably warm. We headed off down the hill from our house, towards our neighborhood park.

[Music]

Rosin: A block past the park, Lauren spotted it: A black Chevy Equinox with Texas plates we’d seen parked around the neighborhood. Just a basic American SUV except for the stickers that covered the back windshield—

Ober: —stickers we’re very much not used to seeing in our mixed-race, mixed-income neighborhood. Our vibe is more like, Make D.C. the 51st state, and, No taxation without representation.

But these stickers were a combo platter of skulls and American flags. There was a Roman numeral for three—the symbol of a militia group called the Three Percenters—and the pièce de résistance: a giant decal in the center of the back window that read, free our patriots. j4j6, meaning, Justice for January 6.

Rosin: Lauren notices every new or different thing in the neighborhood, and this car was definitely different. As we walked past it, Lauren said what she always said when we saw this car.

Ober: “There’s that fucking militiamobile again!”

Right after I said that moderately unneighborly thing, the passenger-side window rolled down, cigarette smoke curled out of the car, and the person inside shouted, “Justice for J6!”

Rosin: To which Lauren said—

Ober: “You’re in the wrong neighborhood for that, honey.” And then the woman in the car said words I’m not going to forget anytime soon: “We live here now. So suck it, bitch.”

We’ll get to who that person is soon enough. But we’re not there yet. When we first encountered the woman from the car, we had no idea who we were dealing with. I just knew I was sufficiently put in my place. “Well, okay,” I remember saying to Hanna as we walked back home.

Rosin: I remember, after it happened, we walked away in total silence. That’s my memory—each of us looping in our own heads about something.

Ober: I remember being mad because I lost. (Laughs.)

Rosin: Right.

Ober: Because I didn’t get the final word, and because I just kept thinking, like, the whole combination of it felt bad to me. It’s like, Militia stickers. Justice for J6. We live here. You just called me a name. The whole thing was very out of place. And I felt it was a little destabilizing.

Rosin: Yeah, yeah. I walked home in a half hypervigilant-neighborhood-watch brain—like, Who lives here now? What are they doing here? Are we going to get into more of these confrontations?—and a half journalism brain, like, Who’s we? Where do they live? Why are there here now? Those were my two tracks when I was walking home.

[Music]

​Ober: I’m Lauren Ober.

Rosin: And I’m Hanna Rosin.

Ober: And from The Atlantic, this is We Live Here Now.

Most of the country watched January 6 from a safe distance: something happening in their Twitter feeds or on their phone screens. But for those of us living in D.C., it was happening in our backyard.

Donald Trump: I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.

Rioter: Start making a list. Put all those names down. And we start hunting them down one by one.

Person on bullhorn inside Congress: We had a disbursement of tear gas in the Rotunda. Please be advised there are masks under your seats. Please grab a mask.

[Music]

All Things Considered host Ailsa Chang: In Washington, D.C., a curfew has now taken effect from 6 p.m. Eastern tonight to 6 a.m. Thursday morning.

Ober: So we were actually left with the wreckage of that day. We were in a militarized city. We were living under a curfew. Streets were blocked off. The windows were all boarded up. And you felt like you were living, if not in a warzone, in a dangerous place.

Rosin: And there was National Guard everywhere. All the stores were closed, and there were very few regular people walking around doing regular things. And I was just thinking, Where am I? What city is this?

Ober: Right. I bought a baseball bat for protection.

Rosin: I remember that.

Ober: Which is why, two-plus years later, it felt like this whole period of time we’d rather forget was racing back. Donald Trump was looking like he’d be the Republican nominee, and a second Trump presidency seemed possible. Plus, we had a car with militia stickers lurking in our neighborhood.

Rosin: So no, we did not welcome January 6 supporters creeping back to the scene of the crime. But also, we wanted to know what they were up to.

[Music]

Ober: In the immediate aftermath of January 6, there were three names I associated with what happened at the Capitol: The QAnon Shaman, for obvious reasons; Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes because he seemed really dangerous, and also he had an eye patch; and Ashli Babbitt, who has everything to do with our new neighbors’ arrival in D.C.

Four people died that day, but I only remember hearing about Ashli. Maybe that’s because she was the only rioter killed by law enforcement.

Ashli Babbitt was a Trump diehard, so it’s not surprising she made her way to D.C. for the rally. She was a Second Amendment–loving libertarian. She wholeheartedly believed in MAGA and QAnon. During the pandemic, she was hostile about mask mandates and refused to get vaccinated. When California issued a stay-at-home order, she tweeted, “This is that commie bullshit!”

Rosin: The day before her death, Ashli tweeted in QAnon speak: “Nothing will stop us....they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon D.C. in less than 24 hours....dark to light!”

Ashli Babbitt: We are walking to the Capitol in a mob. There’s an estimated over 3 million people here today. So despite what the media tells you, boots on ground definitely say something different. There is a sea of nothing but red, white, and blue.

Ober: On the day of the riots, she seemed genuinely thrilled to be there.

Babbitt: And it was amazing to get to see the president talk. We are now walking down the inaugural path to the Capitol building, 3 million plus people. God bless America, patriots.

Rosin: More like 50,000 people, give or take. And a few thousand of them went into the Capitol—or, more accurately, broke in. When the mob of protestors breached the Capitol, busting windows and breaking down doors, Ashli was right there in the mix.

Rioter: There’s so many people. They’re going to push their way up here.

Rosin: There are four videos shot by rioters that capture this moment in its entirety: Ashli strides down a hallway like she knows where she’s going. She’s followed by other rioters, but they’re suddenly stopped when they come to a set of doors with large window panels. Through the windows, you can make out congresspeople being evacuated away from the growing mob. The crowd Ashli is with has accidentally landed at the bullseye, the actual place where these congresspeople were about to certify the election.

[Crowd noise]

Rosin: On the other side of the doors is a cop with a gun, although it’s unclear if Ashli can see him. She’s the only woman in a sea of men, and she’s small, and she seems to be yelling.

Ashli: It’s our fucking house. We’re allowed to be in here. You’re wrong.

Rosin: “It’s our fucking house. We’re allowed to be in here. You’re wrong.”

One of the rioters breaks a window, and then, out of nowhere, Ashli tries to climb through it.

[Crowd noise]

Rosin: The cop shoots.

Rioter: Oh! Oh, shit! Shots fired! Shots fired!

Rosin: She immediately falls backwards and lands on the floor. She jerks and convulses, and blood pours out of her mouth.

Rioter 1: She’s dead.

Rioter 2: She’s dead?

Rioter 1: She’s dead. I saw the light go out in her eyes. I saw the lights go out.

Rioter 2: What happened, bro? Tell the world.

Rosin: And then something happens right after she dies. It’s a detail I missed at first, but it turned out to be a spark for everything that would happen since that day. People around Ashli take out their cell phones and start filming.

Rioter 1: This individual says he actually saw her die. He actually saw her die.

Rioter 2: I’ll post that video. I have the video. I have the video of the guy with the gun, and they’re shooting her.

Rioter: Okay. I want to get with you. I’m with Infowars.com. I’m with Infowars.com.

Rioter 2: “Jayden X.” Have you ever heard of that?

Rosin: One person says he’s from Infowars and offers to buy footage from someone closer.

Rioter 1: I want to get your info right now if you got that shot.

Rioter 2: I have it all. I was right at the door.

Rioter 2: Okay. I need that footage, man. It’s going to go out to the world. It’s going to change so much.

Rosin: Even in the chaos they realize: A martyr was born.

Ober: Rumors spread immediately that the woman killed was 25, 21, a mere teenager. In actual fact, Ashli was 35. But the details didn’t matter. She was a young, white woman in the prime of her life shot dead by a Black officer. People were quick to point out that she was a veteran—a war hero, even—purportedly upholding her oath to defend the Constitution when she died.

On far-right, pro-Trump message boards post-January 6, Ashli was called a freedom fighter and the “first victim of the second Civil War.” One person wrote: “Your blood will not be in vain. We will avenge you.”

Rosin: People who came to January 6 thought they were saving our democracy from evil forces trying to steal an election.

Three years later, some of them still think that. And now, those same evil forces are keeping J6 “freedom fighters” in prison. Justice for January 6—that’s what those window stickers on the Chevy are about.

Ober: This conspiracy has gotten more elaborate over time: The insurrection was a setup, or, The prosecution of January 6 rioters represented gross government overreach, or, The government can turn on its own citizens, even kill them.

Rosin: A lot of the people who believe these things have taken their cues from one woman: Ashli’s mother. Her name is Micki Witthoeft.

Micki Witthoeft: Ashli was a beloved daughter, wife, sister, granddaughter, niece, and aunt. But beyond that, she was the single bravest person I have ever known. She was the quintessential American woman. Today is a dark day for our family and this country, for they have lost a true patriot. I would like to invite Donald J. Trump to say her name—

[Music]

Ober: It took us a minute, but with the help of some friends, we finally figured out that Micki was our new neighbor. I wasn’t sure what I thought about having Ashli Babbitt’s grieving mother come back to the place where her daughter was killed. Why was she here, in our D.C. neighborhood? What did she want? Was there some sort of future Jan. 6 on the horizon? It all felt just a little too close for comfort.

In the days after our run-in with the neighbor, I Googled ’til my eyeballs dried out. There were a lot of videos on social media that featured Micki but not a lot of solid information. I reported what I could find to Hanna.

Ober: Do you want to know what the house is called?

Rosin: What?

Ober: The Eagle’s Nest.

Rosin: Oh, stop. (Laughs.) What?

Ober: Yeah.

Rosin: No, we don’t have the Eagle’s Nest in our neighborhood.

Ober: What does the Eagle’s Nest mean to you?

Rosin: Some patriot thing.

Ober: No. Well, sure, one would think, Oh, it’s patriotic, right? American Eagle.

Rosin: Mm-hmm.

Ober: It’s where all the eagles go. But do you know who else had a very particular property called the Eagle’s Nest?

Rosin: No.

Ober: Well, I’ll tell you. It’s Adolf Hitler. However, to quote Micki, who explained to HuffPost why they called the house the Eagle’s Nest:

Ober: She said, We call our house the Eagle’s Nest, which some would say was Hitler’s hideout. But we’re American citizens, and we won that war, and we’re taking back the name. So this is absolutely not an ode to Hitler.

Ober: Here’s what else I found out: The online videos of Micki didn’t exactly make me want to bring over a tray of homemade, “Welcome to the neighborhood” brownies. Lots of shouting and scowling and general unpleasantness.

Witthoeft: Why are you all here if you’re going to let that happen? He said, Why the hell are you all here?

Person 2: He said that to you? That was very unprofessional!

Person 3: They’re fascists.

Ober: In one clip online, Micki is being arrested for “blocking and obstructing roadways.” She was at a march to honor the second anniversary of her daughter’s death, and she walked into the street one too many times. The D.C. cops did not appreciate that, and they let her know it.

It wasn’t the only time she got into it with the cops. A year later—

Witthoeft: I try to show y’all respect. I’ve been arrested twice, and I’ve done it peacefully. That’s bullshit. Your man is bullshit. That’s bullshit.

Officer: I wasn’t down here, so I can speak to how—

Ober: There were more than a few videos of Micki and her housemates getting into dustups with D.C. folks who didn’t seem to appreciate their presence in their city.

Person 1: Get the fuck outta here.

Person 2: Get the fuck off of me, bitch. Get the fuck off, the fuck off. Get the fuck off.

Person 3: Hey! We caught it on video.

Person 2: Stop fucking touching my shit.

Person 3: Get out of here, you pansy.

Ober: But later, in the same video, there’s this: Our new neighbors are getting harassed by anti-J6 protestors, folks who like to chalk the sidewalk with phrases like “Micki is a grifter.” There are a number of D.C. cops on the scene. I get tense just watching it. Finally, Micki snaps and screams at them.

Officer: I heard all the commotion. That’s why I got out. I can’t see—I didn’t see what happened out here.

Person 2: I had to beg him to get out of his car.

Witthoeft: You can tell your man that the reason I’m here is because three years ago today, y’all killed my kid. That’s why I’m here.

[Music]

Ober: Right. She’s a mom, and the police killed her kid. That’s why she’s here. She wants to make sure her dead daughter isn’t forgotten and that someone is held accountable for what happened.

And one way to do that is to maybe get yourself arrested, or at least show up everywhere—January 6 trials, congressional hearings, the Supreme Court, rallies, marches, my neighborhood.

Another way for people to take notice? A nightly vigil outside the D.C. jail, every single night for more than 700 nights.

Rosin: And we mean every night, in the rain or scorching heat. Without fail, Micki and a few supporters stand on what they call Freedom Corner and talk on the phone with the J6 defendants held inside the jail.

Ober: As I explained to Hanna:

Ober: Every night at 7 p.m., these apparently true patriots—

Rosin: Mm-hmm.

Ober: —come out, and they have a vigil for all of the January 6 defendants who are currently being held in the jail, either awaiting trial or awaiting sentencing.

Rosin: Mm-hmm.

Ober: And every night, they get a January 6 inmate on the phone, and they put them on the speaker, and then they join in singing, like, the national anthem or “America the Beautiful,” and they’re chanting, like, “Justice for Ashli.” And the evening ends, often, with “God Bless [the U.S.A.],” Lee Greenwood.

Rosin: Who’s the “they”?

Ober: So there’s a small cadre of true believers who believe that the people in the D.C. jail are political prisoners.

Rosin: Interesting.

[Music]

Rosin: Interesting is a boring thing to say. I get that. But I was only just starting to put this whole picture together, that Micki and her friends were not in D.C. just to cause chaos. They were here to push a narrative that these people—the same ones who turned our city upside down—were victims of a colossal injustice. And also, that January 6 was actually a totally appropriate exercise of freedom and liberty.

And their version of the story was getting traction with some important people—actually, the most important person.

Trump: I am the political prisoner of a failing nation, but I will soon be free on November 5, the most important day in the history of our country, and we will together make America great again. Thank you.

Rosin: If our interactions with our new neighbors had unfolded more like the typical neighborhood showdown—my MAGA hat versus your dump trump sign—things might have been easier because that would be just straight-up neighbor warfare, pure mutual hatred.

Ober: But it didn’t happen that way. Instead, two opposite dramas unfolded: (1) We got an up-close, intimate view of how history gets rewritten. Call it the lost-cause narrative for the 21st century: A group of Americans immediately sets to work retooling the history of an event through tweets and podcasts and viral video clips, in a way that distorts collective memory forever.

Rosin: But then, (2) our new neighbors became real people to us. We also got an up-close, intimate view of them, their monumental grief, their sleepless nights, their deep friendship—things that make it harder to purely hate on someone.

Ober: This woman, Micki Witthoeft, is many things to many people—Mama Micki to the January 6 defendants, mother of a dead domestic terrorist to others. But to us, she’s something else—she’s our neighbor.

Ober: Do you want to hear something rotten?

Micki: I don’t know if I do, but I will.

Ober: After months of getting to know Micki, I felt like I needed to confess something. She had been telling me how people in the neighborhood had generally been nice to them, except for this one time. One of her roommates, Nicole, had been sitting in the car, and these two women walked by and said something totally rude, and—I know, you’ve already heard the story before.

Ober: Nicole sitting in the car—that was me. And I’m fully disgusted with myself and embarrassed. Like, because that’s not how I want to be treated, and that’s not how I want to think about people. But I did it.

Micki: Oh, well, I’m surprised you—I’m impressed that you admitted that to me. I really am. That’s going to be interesting when I tell Nicole.

Ober: Since that incident, I’ve spent a lot of time with Micki trying to understand her cause, her politics, and her anger. I’ve had many moments where I thought: What the hell am I doing, getting all caught up in their revisionist history of January 6? But what I can tell you is that Micki is not who I thought she was.

She is every bit as fiery as she comes off in speeches and confrontations with people who want her out of this city. After nearly a year of knowing her, I’m still terrified of her. I have never before in my life met a person with such penetrating eyes, and she wields them to great effect. If she is staring you down, I promise you, you will find no relief.

Ober: So the window rolls down, and I guess Nicole said, you know, “Justice for J6!” Right? Reflexively, in two seconds, I go, “Well, you’re in the wrong neighborhood for that.” Right? Now, I feel like you would appreciate that because sometimes things pop out of your mouth that maybe you didn’t think about. I am a person who is very guilty of that, as my mouth runs away with me.

So, I said that, and she goes, “We live here now. So suck it, bitch.” (Laughs.)

Micki: That’s my Nicole. (Laughs.)

Ober: And I was like, Well, okay.

[Music]

Rosin: When we first ran into the militiamobile, we didn’t know anything about Micki and her crew. We thought anyone could be living in that house, with that car. Maybe it was an actual militia headquarters with a cache of weapons in the basement. Maybe it was just some wacko whose patriotism had gone totally sideways.

Ober: But now, after nearly a year of reporting this story, we know so much more. And in the rest of the series, we are going to take you through this upside-down world we landed in—where we found ourselves talking conspiracies.

Micki: I don’t know what I believe them capable of. Is it eating babies and drinking their blood? I don’t think so. But I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know what they’re up to.

Ober: How you can suddenly find yourself joking with January 6ers about militias?

Nicole: If you’re going to come down here, you’ve got to know your militias straight.

Ober: You know, I can’t—there are too many splinter groups and, you know.

Nicole: There’s factions. There’s levels. There’s color coding. (Laughs.)

Ober: Listen. When the gay militia happens, I’m there, okay? When that happens. Until then—

Nicole: Well, we’re a country of militias, you know.

Ober: And wondering, What could possibly be coming for us?

Rosin: Like, how long are you going to stay in D.C.?

Brandon Fellows: I plan to stay ’til, like, January 7. (Laughs.)

Rosin: That feels vaguely threatening.

Fellows: I could see why you would say that.

Rosin: That’s coming up on We Live Here Now.

Ober: We Live Here Now is a production of The Atlantic. The show was reported, written, and executive produced by me, Lauren Ober. Hanna Rosin reported, wrote, and edited the series. Our senior producer is Rider Alsop. Our producer is Ethan Brooks. Original scoring, sound design, and mix engineering by Brendan Baker.

This series was edited by Scott Stossel and Claudine Ebeid. Fact-checking by Michelle Ciarrocca. Art direction by Colin Hunter. Project management by Nancy DeVille.

Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.

The Atlantic’s executive editor is Adrienne LaFrance. Jeffrey Goldberg is The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief.

Nicole. And then did I say something like, Well, bitch, I live here now, or something?

Ober: Very close to that. “We live here now, so—”

Nicole: Get used to it?

Ober: No.

Nicole: Suck it? Fuck it?

Ober: No. You’re right on the “suck it.”

Nicole: (Laughs.) I don’t know.

Ober: “Suck it,” what? “Suck it,” who?

Nicole: Suck it, fascist? (Laughs.) So much more fascist than me. Don’t tell me what I said.

Ober: You said, “Suck it, bitch.”

Nicole: Oh! Okay. Okay.

Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeart Media | YouTube | Pocket Casts

January 6 could have faded for Republicans as a day they’d rather not talk about. But then six months later, Donald Trump landed on a story that’s become useful to him. He started talking about Ashli Babbitt, the woman who was fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer. Over a few weeks, Trump started spinning a new story: Babbitt was a martyr, and the people imprisoned for January 6 were political prisoners, and the villain was the Deep State, the same shady entity that denied him the presidency.

In this episode of We Live Here Now, we trace how Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt, got Trump’s attention and may have changed the course of history as a result. Witthoeft never had anything to do with politics before her daughter was killed. But by her constant presence at January 6 vigils and rallies, she managed to create a new reality.

This is the third episode of We Live Here Now, a six-part series about what happened when we found out that our new neighbors were supporting January 6 insurrectionists.

The following is a transcript of the episode:

Lauren Ober: I wonder what justice looks like and what happens if it doesn’t come.

Hanna Rosin: This is a question Lauren would ask Micki a lot.

Micki Witthoeft: I want to see somebody held accountable for my daughter’s death.

Nicole Reffitt: Exactly.

Witthoeft: You know, I want to see a lot of people held accountable for my daughter’s death and the way she’s been treated since then.

Ober: By whom?

Witthoeft: By people that consider her disposable.

Ober: What happens if no one is held accountable in a way that feels correct for you?

Witthoeft: Well, that’s a good question, Lauren. But I guess, then, I will just have to take my dying breath trying to bring that about.

Rosin: Micki has been in D.C., far from home, for a long time. She has four sons and two grandsons, one she barely knows because most of his life, she’s been 3,000 miles away on “Freedom Corner,” chasing this slippery justice—these somebodies to hold accountable, whatever “accountable” means. And then there’s Nicole.

Reffitt: Yeah, it looks like a very long road. My family is never going to be the same as they were prior to January 6 ever again. Micki’s family is never going to be the same. Ashli’s never coming back. But being here in D.C. and seeing what that looks like, we ask ourselves that all the time. You know, like, What are we doing? We say that a lot to each other.

Rosin: Lauren and I have that same question. What did they get done here? Seen one way, Micki Witthoeft and Nicole Reffitt have spent 700-plus evenings far away from their families to organize a small, fringey protest at the back of the D.C. jail. But seen another way, these two women diverted the course of history.

Or maybe both are true, because this is a very weird political era where fringe can merge with power, and suddenly the world is upside down.

I’m Hanna Rosin.

Ober: And I’m Lauren Ober. And from The Atlantic, this is: We Live Here Now.

In this episode, we try and tease out how Micki’s personal mission and Donald Trump’s political mission collided with each other. Warning: Hanna and I do not land in the same place on this one, and we have our very own hot-mic moment debating things. So lucky for you.

In her previous life, Micki wasn’t all that political. But almost as soon as she learned her daughter died, politics came up. On January 7, she gave an interview to Fox 5 in San Diego.

[Music]

Witthoeft: I would like to invite Donald J. Trump to say her name out loud, to acknowledge the passing of his loudest and proudest supporter, Ashli Elizabeth Babbitt.

Rosin: It’s revealing that at her saddest, Micki thought to call on Trump. You can hear that and think, Maybe there’s a hint of a possibility here that she thinks he should take some responsibility for Ashli’s death.

There was another woman who died on January 6 at the Capitol: Rosanne Boyland, a Trump supporter who was around Ashli’s age. She was crushed by the mob just outside the Capitol. The day after her death, her brother-in-law squarely and publicly blamed her death on Trump and QAnon for leading her astray.

Micki, too, could have decided that Trump spread the lie that the election was stolen to soothe his wounded ego, which lured her daughter to D.C. and got her killed. But she didn’t. Something moved her in the opposite direction. And for thousands—who knows, millions—of people, the meaning of January 6 started to shift along with her.

Trump didn’t know Micki’s name on January 7, because back then, he was on the defensive. There were reports that some Republican leaders were going to ask him to resign.That never happened. Instead, they settled at: How about we just forget this whole January 6th thing? Just don’t mention it.

And then around July 4, 2021, in a series of speeches, candidate Trump took a bold left turn—actually, a right turn.

[Crowd noise]

Donald Trump: Wow, that’s a lot of people. Thank you.

Rosin: It started, as best as I can tell, at a rally. It was July 3rd—nearly seven months after the Capitol riots. It was a Saturday in Sarasota, Florida. Trump is hitting all his usual rally points, and then you can hear him reach for something new.

Trump: The Republicans have to get themselves a real leader. You got some great senators, but they have to get themselves a real leader. And by the way, who shot Ashli Babbitt? Who shot Ashli Babbitt?

Rosin: With an investigation into January 6 just getting underway, Trump tried a new tack.

Trump: Who? Who shot Ashli Babbitt? I spoke to her mother the other day. An incredible woman. She’s just devastated like it happened yesterday. And it’s a terrible thing. Shot, boom, there was no reason for it. Who shot Ashli Babbitt? It’s got to be released.

Rosin: Four days later, he was talking about it again, this time at a press conference in New Jersey. At this point, the investigation was still not releasing the name of Michael Byrd, the Capitol Police officer who shot Ashli.

Trump: But the person that shot Ashli Babbitt—boom, right through the head. Just boom. There was no reason for that. They’ve already written it off. They said, That case is closed.

Rosin: She was shot in the shoulder, not the head. But Trump wasn’t interested in details here. They’ve already written off Ashli’s murder. They said the case is closed. Who was “they”? Of course, the same people who stole the election.

Five days after that, Trump is on Fox News:

Trump: Who shot Ashli Babbitt? People want to know. And why?

Rosin: Now, the Big Lie could easily have faded away—just been recorded in history books as that moment when a man named Donald Trump tried to subvert the peaceful transfer of power. But phew—democracy is resilient. The Department of Justice closed its investigation into Michael Byrd and said there was no reason to press charges. Problem solved.

But that’s not what happened. Ashli’s death became the most direct and vivid way to give the Big Lie new life. Trump invoked Ashli at rallies and on TV and in press conferences. He had landed on a powerful new strategy, and he worked it for the better part of a year.

Ober: Eventually, Micki landed in D.C., and within a month, she and Trump, who had both been talking about Ashli separately, were now talking about Ashli together. It happened in September 2022, when Trump called into the vigil Micki was hosting that night.

Witthoeft: You’re on livestream with different countries and our crowd outside. Thank you for calling, and you’re on. Go.

Trump: Okay. Well, Micki, it’s an honor to be with you. And to everybody listening, it’s a terrible thing that has happened to a lot of people that are being treated very, very unfairly. We love Ashli, and it was so horrible what happened to her. Micki, you’re asking me to just speak to everybody, but we cannot allow this to happen to our country. So God bless everybody. We are working very hard.

Witthoeft: Thank you for calling, President Trump. I know the men inside appreciate you, as I do as well.

Trump: And say hello to everybody.

Rosin: This is the moment their missions collided. Micki had asked for Trump to say her daughter’s name out loud, and he did. He said, “We love Ashli.” So when Micki and Nicole say to themselves, What did we get done on Freedom Corner?, this is a moment they can point to.

But many a grieving American mother has received a call from a powerful politician. It can be just a fleeting moment of political theater, or it can lead to something much bigger. In this case, I would argue that it’s the latter. And I can back that up based on what Lauren saw when she followed Micki to the biggest event on the conservative political calendar.

[Music]

Ober: In February of this year, I tagged along with Micki and the “Eagle’s Nest” crew to CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. If Washington is Hollywood for ugly people, then CPAC is its Sundance. It’s been the premier Republican convention for the past 50 years. It usually happens just outside D.C., in suburban Maryland, and it’s become a place for conservative candidates to dry run new messaging.

Witthoeft: I think the check-in line is going to be a freaking zoo, because we don’t yet have our badges.

Ober: Yeah, but everything’s, like, electronic, so it seemed like they have enough spots.

Witthoeft: Yeah, but there’s a lot of old people, like me, that can’t work our shit.

Ober: Of course, the first thing I wanted to do when we got to CPAC was visit the vendor hall.

Ober (on tape): So now I’m in, like, Vendor Village area.

Ober: And I was not disappointed. There were folks hawking MAGA hammocks and vibration plates that shake your cellulite away and candles that smelled like freedom, allegedly. The drag queen Lady Maga was there, waving adoringly to her fan. And did I catch a glimpse of Mr. MyPillow himself, Mike Lindell? Yes, I did.

Ober: Also on offer—

Vendor: You wanna play some pinball?

Ober: I’m terrible at it.

Vendor: That’s okay.

Ober: But sure. Why not?

[Game noises]

Ober: A January 6 pinball game—

[Game noises]

Ober: What do I get if I win?

Vendor: You get a high score.

[Laughter]

Ober: —where I could get points for storming the Capitol.

Vendor: Save America. You made it to the Capitol.

Ober: Oh, like January 6.

[Game noises]

Ober: Okay, I wasn’t there to play Insurrection Pinball. I was there to observe.

As I followed Micki around the convention hall, it was clear to me that she was here to play a role. She was the living, breathing mother of the J6 martyr, complete with the costume: a T-shirt that read “ashli babbitt, murdered by capitol police, january 6, 2021.” Plenty of people recognized her. They did those sad, little pity smiles and asked for a handshake or a hug or a photo. More than a few people approached Micki and asked if they could pray for her.

Stranger 1: Dear Lord, thank you for this woman that’s here. And thank you for her bravery, and for her taking this season of pain and turning it into something that’s for your glory, Lord. And we know that you are victorious, and you will surround her with your comfort and your peace, and you will infuse her with strength, and just bless this whole weekend and every interaction she has. And we know that all is done for the glory of you. In Jesus’s name, amen.

Witthoeft: Thank you, ladies.

Stranger 1: You’re welcome. Good work. Good work.

Witthoeft: Thank y’all.

Ober: Three-plus years into playing this role, I could see it was wearing on Micki. She looked exhausted. Throughout the conference, stranger after stranger approached Micki.

Stranger 2: I’m so sorry for your loss. These people will be held accountable.

Witthoeft: I sure hope so.

Stranger 2: Justice will be served.

Witthoeft: Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. I hope so.

Ober: Micki is gracious about it, but I’ve been around her long enough by now to know that there are other things bubbling under the surface.

Ober: This happens again and again and again throughout the three-day convention. And Micki is gracious about it, but I’ve been around her long enough by now to know that there are other things bubbling under the surface.

Ober: Is it tiring when people come up to you and they say, Oh, I’m so sorry? Like—

Witthoeft: That’s not tiring. There are certain phrases that I find offensive. And people don’t mean them offensively, but sometimes they—

Ober: Like what?

Witthoeft: Like, the one that always gets me is: It could have been me. I don’t like that when people say that to me. My response is, Okay, thanks. Nice to meet you. Bye.

Ober: Right.

Witthoeft: I mean, I try not to be rude, because I know people don’t mean it in a way to be offensive. It’s recognition of Ashli’s sacrifice on a certain level. So I don’t want to be offensive back at them, because I don’t feel like they mean to be offensive to me. So I just, you know, try to be as polite as possible and move on.

Ober: Right. Right.

Witthoeft: Try not to say, Yeah? Well, I wish it was, and it wasn’t my daughter, because that’s not appropriate either. But the truth is, I wish it was anybody else. So you know, I don’t know how you respond to that as—

Coffee! Big-ass sign right there.

Ober: Okay, that conversation ended a bit abruptly. Anyway, on the last day of CPAC, Hanna came, and we met up in the press section, which looked like it was more filled with right-wing TikTokers than actual traditional journalists. Hanna and I were eating snacks and waiting for Trump’s speech to start when something familiar came over the loudspeaker.

J6 Choir: O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light—

Ober: My first thought was, What is this garbage recording? Surely, the Trump campaign could have found a higher-quality rendition of our national anthem.

But then we realized why the song sounded like that. This was sung at the D.C. jail, the J6 prison choir, which Micki played every night at the vigil over the loudspeakers.

Trump: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Ober: Mixed with Donald Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Rosin: This was the fight song for the “Patriot Pod” prisoners, the musical backdrop to Micki’s dream about Ashli. And now the possible next future president was taking it up as his own.

Trump: I stand before you today, not only as your past and hopefully future president, but as a proud political dissident. I am a dissident.

Rosin: And in this speech—the darkest one of his campaign so far—he vowed to get revenge.

Trump: For hardworking Americans, November 5 will be our new liberation day. But for the liars and cheaters and fraudsters and censors and imposters who have commandeered our government, it will be their judgment day! Their judgment day.

[Crowd cheers]

Rosin: It would be an exaggeration to say Micki orchestrated this political moment. After all, she’d never really been into politics. Her San Diego life was just fine without mainlining Fox News. Maybe the more accurate way to say it is that between her dream and her enduring grief, she manifested this moment—where Trump and the J6ers became one—where Trump said over and over that if he became president, he would pardon the J6ers, basically, magically fulfilling Ashli’s vision in Micki’s dream.

Ober: The day after CPAC, we ran into Micki while walking the dogs and asked her what she thought of Trump’s speech. Apparently, she hadn’t seen it. The Eagle’s Nest crew left and went home before Trump even took the stage. When the politicians come in the room, she said, that’s when the bullshit starts.

Rosin: So the Micki–MAGA relationship—it’s pretty complicated. That’s after the break.

[Break]

Ober: If you ask Micki if she thinks all the jailed J6ers should be pardoned for their actions at the Capitol, her answer is probably not going to be the one you expect. More than once, Micki has told me that not everyone acted like a Boy Scout that day. So the more violent ones—or the folks who brought implements, like pitchforks, say—deserved to be punished. So Trump saying he’s gonna pardon all J6ers doesn’t really move her much. But she sees the utility of Trump talking about January 6. She can use him to bring attention to her cause, just like he has used her daughter as a campaign prop.

There are other things about Micki that don’t necessarily track with MAGA lunacy. She thinks that healthcare shouldn’t be tied to employment and that there should be term limits for judges and lawmakers. She’s pretty pro-LGBTQ, since Ashli was bisexual. And once, we had a five-minute conversation about gun control where we almost—almost—came to a shared conclusion.

Now, that doesn’t mean that Micki is turning blue any time soon. She’s more like a populist libertarian who often says impolitic things, even harmful things—like the time right before I met her, when she said this about Lieutenant Michael Byrd.

Witthoeft: Michael Byrd needs to swing from the end of a rope, along with Nancy Pelosi.

Ober: Byrd is Black. Micki is white. Which she discussed when she brought up the comment to me.

Witthoeft: You know, I mean, there’s much talk about me saying Michael Byrd should be swinging from the end of a rope. It’s saying, Oh, look at her. She’s calling for a lynching. I am not calling for a lynching.

Ober: Her explanation wasn’t exculpatory by any means, and no one should be calling for anyone’s execution. But I wanted to hear Micki out. So we’re gonna let this run because she landed in a place I didn’t see coming.

Witthoeft: A hanging and a lynching are two different things. A hanging occurs after a trial and you’re pronounced guilty, and your ass gets hung. That’s how it happens. It’s happened. And it’s happened not just to Black people, specifically. Lynchings—most of them are Black people. But hangings—hangings are retribution for something that you got coming to you. And they used to do it right on the battlefield. If you got convicted of treason, they would either shoot you or hang you. And that’s the way I meant that. And I said it about Nancy Pelosi too, and she’s about as white-bread as you come, which is another thing when people start talking about white privilege. I am not that white-privilege person. I have never had money. Ashli doesn’t come from white privilege. She worked hard for anything she ever had, and so has my family.

Ober: Sure. I have worked hard for everything I have, and I also have an enormous amount of privilege, largely due to my race and economic status.

Witthoeft: I understand that Black people have been treated in a different way than white people have in this country for a long time—well, forever. But I thought that we were making huge strides in that, until, you know—until I came to this city, actually. But what I will say is: Being the parent of a child that was murdered under color of authority.

Ober: Yeah.

Witthoeft: It does make me—’cause you don’t know until you know—it does make me identify somewhat with Black and brown mothers who have been going through this for decades, because their children have been murdered under color of authority without any avenue for retribution, for years.

Ober: You can see how a Black mother whose child was killed by police would forever mistrust authority. Micki landed in the same place. Only for her, the mistrust was supercharged.

Witthoeft: When they killed Ashli, they took a lot more from me than my daughter. They took my whole belief in the system that runs America from me. Even though, you know, It’s a little bad; it’s mostly good. I don’t believe that anymore. And so in that process, I don’t know what I believe them capable of. Is it eating babies and drinking their blood? I don’t think so, but I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know what they’re up to. I really don’t know what they’re up to.

[Music]

Ober: Years from now, when Micki and Nicole ask themselves the question, What did we actually accomplish in D.C.? they might come up with an answer that has nothing to do with Trump or Justice for January 6. These two women who had only ever known themselves as wives and mothers learned they could whisper in a president’s ear and whip up the media and become impossible to ignore. And they could’ve only done it because they walked out of that courtroom together, hand in hand.

One of the things I’ve been most surprised about is the depth of their friendship, which is only a couple of years old. Since Ashli died, Micki can barely sleep. She’s had panic that takes her breath away and nightmares that make her weep. She can’t bear to sleep in a room by herself. So she and Nicole share the basement of the Eagle’s Nest, their mattresses pushed head to head. Oliver, the dog, plops himself in between the two of them like a canine headboard. Just hearing Nicole and her dog softly breathe is a comfort to Micki.

Witthoeft: I’ve bonded with Nicole in ways that I’ve bonded with very few people. There’s really nothing about me that Nicole doesn’t—I mean, I’m sure there’s things, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t say to her. Maybe that’s because we sleep head to head, and we yap all night, but I don’t know.

Ober: Micki had no idea who Nicole Reffitt was when she showed up at Guy Reffitt’s sentencing in August of 2022. But their connection was almost instantaneous.

Witthoeft: If you believe in love at first sight, which I don’t really do—I believe in sexual attraction at first sight, but I don’t know about love at first sight. But I think if that’s possible, then friendship at first sight is. And when I first saw Nicole, like I said, I had never met her, and I knew instantly who she was. And she just had this defiant, “strong-ass woman” look on her face, and I just knew she was somebody I could be friends with.

Ober: There was one moment early on in their living together that kind of sealed the deal for Micki.

Witthoeft: But when I knew that we would be friends forever, oddly enough—why do you always make me cry, Lauren? Shit. It was the day my dog died. Because she, you know—I was on the couch with Fuggles, and I couldn’t make it happen. I was like, I just—I wanted to call.

Ober: But she couldn’t. So Nicole called the vet and had Fuggles put down. That small kindness meant everything to Micki.

Witthoeft: I just thought at that minute that I truly loved her. I do.

[Music]

Ober: Now, because Nicole and Micki are often seen together, and because of that one hand-holding scene after Guy’s sentencing, the online haters have had a field day. Someone made a music video that mashed up their voices from the vigil with overtly sexual innuendo and patriotic imagery. It’s too crass for me to play for you here, but I’m sure you know how to Google, if you’re interested.

Recently, someone sent Nicole a cardboard mailing tube that said the words “oversizeddildos.com” plastered on the side. The tube was empty. Right after the mailer arrived, Micki texted me a photo. “Did you prank us?” she wrote. For the record, I did not. She wrote back: “I told you I hate it when the left is funny. There wasn’t anything in the canister. More empty promises.”

Ober: After I had a good laugh about the whole situation, I pushed Nicole to try to put a name to the love that they have for each other.

Ober: A lot of people’s intimate relationships can’t be defined. And so I could ask you, Okay, is it like you feel like a sister bond?

Reffitt: It’s more.

Ober: Is it like you feel, like—right. Like a—

Reffitt: It’s not sexual, but it is more.

Ober: Yeah. Like an intimate-partner bond.

Reffitt: Oh yeah. It’s definitely an intimate-partner bond.

Ober: Right.

Reffitt: I don’t even know what kind of love that must be, because I love Micki more than a friendship love. But you know, there’s not a lot of the sexual aspect of it. But there’s intimacy.

Ober: Mm-hmm. What does “intimacy” mean?

Reffitt: I don’t know. You can have intimate moments with someone while being fully clothed. You know, like, you can share very close feelings without touching anyone. So those are intimate moments, I think.

Ober: Like, give me an example.

Reffitt: Well, I’m not gonna tell you shit. I’m already telling you all this. I know, but like—

Ober: No. Because I’m just trying to understand.

Reffitt: I mean, I think this is—well, this is a level of intimacy. It’s a level that we’re having.

Ober: You and me?

Reffitt: Yeah. We’re being intimate. I mean, I’m being intimate with you.

Ober: Right. It’s not an equal exchange.

Reffitt: Exactly. Like, you’re not being intimate with me, but I absolutely am being intimate with you. So I’m being very vulnerable.

Ober: Mm-hmm.

Reffitt: But Micki is reciprocal. I mean, like, we’re sharing that.

Ober: Mm-hmm.

[Music]

Rosin: Would you say that you guys were friends?

Ober: I guess it depends on what your version of friend is. No. I mean, we’re neighbors.

Rosin: I pressed Lauren a lot about this. Obviously, she was a journalist, and it was her job to spend time with these guys. But had she become, like, friends friends with them? Is that a good thing? Is it dangerous? Sometimes we had fights about it. This one, for example—it’s the hot-mic moment we promised you.

Rosin: I feel so differently than you do about this. I don’t spend this much time with them. What I notice at the vigil is not what you notice at the vigil. I don’t think it’s fucking cute at all.

Ober: You think I think it’s cute? No. It’s fucking weird. But I also don’t think that it’s, like, shredding—

Rosin: No. I don’t think it’s weird. I think it’s absolutely destructive.

Ober: But, see, I don’t have any proof that it is. Like I don’t have proof that it’s destructive. I don’t have any notion that it’s any—

Rosin: How about Trump playing that song at Waco, Texas?

Ober: Of course, but it wasn’t about the J6—

Rosin: Who got that song into the public consciousness? Micki.

Ober: No, she didn’t, actually. She had nothing to do with it.

Rosin: Lauren, we just feel differently. To me, it’s like, I think Micki is a lovely, interesting, complicated person. And I think this mission that she’s on in D.C. is absolutely destructive.

Ober: Show me proof of destruction. That is not new. They have a platform—

Rosin: Okay, Micki didn’t cause it. Micki didn’t bring it into being. Micki created an audience for it. She brings Trump to them. She brings these politicians to them.

Ober: But it’s not—

Rosin: So you have to account for the things that Micki is supporting and laying out the red carpet for. Like, her ideology is meaningful.

Rosin: I dug in. This fight went on for, like, an hour and a half more. And by the end of it, nothing was resolved.

In our next episode: Lauren gets even closer to the action, and she asks herself whether she ruined a J6er’s life.

Marie Johnatakis: It was really surprising that they took him into custody then. And I just remember thinking, like, He’s not a danger. He’s been out this whole time. Can you please just let us? You know, we just need a little more help.

Ober: That’s on the next episode of We Live Here Now.

[Music]

Ober: We Live Here Now is a production of The Atlantic. The show was reported, written, and executive produced by me, Lauren Ober. Hanna Rosin reported, wrote, and edited the series. Our senior producer is Rider Alsop. Our producer is Ethan Brooks. Original scoring, sound design, and mix engineering by Brendan Baker.

This series was edited by Scott Stossel and Claudine Ebeid. Fact-checking by Michelle Ciarrocca. Art direction by Colin Hunter. Project management by Nancy DeVille.

Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. The Atlantic’s executive editor is Adrienne LaFrance. Jeffrey Goldberg is The Atlantic’s editor in chief.