War Game | Deadline Studio at Sundance
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - So looking at this movie
00:16 and looking at the realities of 2024 and this election,
00:20 how worried are you?
00:21 - I'm deeply concerned.
00:22 Our organization took on this initiative
00:25 because we thought that this needed to be a conversation
00:28 that our nation was having in a much bigger way.
00:31 And doing this exercise was a way to tease out
00:33 some of the vulnerabilities that exist in our democracy
00:36 and also to start a larger conversation
00:38 about this issue of rising extremism in the United States.
00:42 There are those in the administration
00:43 that are equally concerned with this issue,
00:45 but it's also one of many issues that elected officials
00:49 and administration officials are dealing with.
00:50 So what we really need is for elected officials
00:53 and for administration officials
00:55 to be held accountable by the public
00:56 for this conversation to happen in a big way
00:59 so that it isn't just one civil service organization
01:02 providing resources,
01:03 but there really is a national conversation
01:05 about this threat.
01:06 - Well, I mean, I think that we wouldn't have done this
01:10 if we weren't concerned,
01:11 if we didn't think that this was not a one and done
01:14 on January 6th, that this is a continuing dialogue
01:18 that many people on the far right,
01:19 especially organizations like the Proud Boys,
01:23 the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters,
01:25 who've been around a long time,
01:26 who now have elevated their position politically.
01:30 If we thought they dissipated and there's no more appetite,
01:34 that's not the reality.
01:36 And so we all have to prepare to defend our democracy,
01:40 whether it is the local election official
01:42 who's gonna be attacked if they come up
01:45 with the wrong result, all the way to the White House.
01:48 - And look, look at where we are right now.
01:51 About three weeks ago, polling said a fourth of Americans
01:54 think that the FBI actually incited January 6th.
01:59 You have 171 election deniers in the House,
02:03 a third of the overall members of Congress.
02:05 So this isn't some like idle, oh, this could happen.
02:09 This is happening.
02:10 This is happening where people are not only denying
02:13 what happened last January 6th,
02:15 when the third highest House member, Stefanik, says,
02:18 well, we'll see if it's a valid election or not.
02:21 We all should be concerned about where we are,
02:24 not just January 6th, 2021, but where we are today.
02:28 - But adding to that,
02:29 who also calls the January 6th defendants hostages.
02:34 So that message is being sent and resonating to these groups
02:39 to tell them we're still with you.
02:41 North Dakota had an incident in the early '80s
02:45 where the posse comitatus,
02:46 very high profile leader of the posse,
02:49 ended up basically killing a US Marshal.
02:54 It was highly publicized books being written about it.
02:57 Those groups were widely condemned.
03:00 That everyone in public life said, no,
03:03 that's not who we are, we may have disagreements.
03:06 That's not happening.
03:07 It's not happening where now we are inviting this element
03:11 to the political discourse and legitimizing this element
03:15 in a way I haven't seen in my lifetime.
03:18 - No, you can go back.
03:20 Certainly things have been part of sort of the ethos,
03:23 2022, or no,
03:25 go back to 30 years ago, Ruby Ridge in Idaho.
03:33 Go back to Branch Davidians about 30 years ago.
03:37 This has always been an extreme element,
03:40 has always been part of it.
03:42 But as Heidi says, never before have you turned around
03:46 and said literally insurrectionists,
03:49 the third highest member of the House of Representatives
03:53 in the United States calls them hostages.
03:58 We've allowed these fictions
04:00 to actually get into the mainstream.
04:03 And it's dangerous.
04:04 It's dangerous for what could happen.
04:06 And it's dangerous for what is happening.
04:08 When you had literally last time,
04:10 there were 50 people running for governor
04:14 across the country that denied the results
04:18 of the last election.
04:20 Look, I've been in elections where I was disappointed
04:23 in the outcome, didn't have a lot of respect
04:26 for my opponent.
04:28 But at the end of the day, you say, that's what happens.
04:33 And there's something more important.
04:35 And that's, as we say,
04:36 this experiment representative democracy,
04:38 which is being tested right now.
04:40 - Well, I think when the three retired US generals
04:44 first did the op-ed in the Washington Post,
04:47 what they said was, we love democracy, we love America.
04:52 But January 6th was an inflection point.
04:55 Are we gonna pay attention to it?
04:58 Our military background tells us we must.
05:02 The way to look at this and be prepared for the next one
05:06 is we war game it out.
05:08 And I thought those words were unbelievably intelligent.
05:12 I listened to the military, what they had to say.
05:16 And I said to myself, I love democracy, I love America.
05:21 And when John Steinberg, my producing partner
05:24 on "The Old Man" said, I think there's an opportunity
05:29 for this not just to be covered in a 60 minutes piece,
05:33 but it's an opportunity to really, really
05:36 do something that's bigger, a larger warning
05:39 and really document the war game that's going to be made.
05:44 And I said, I can't wait.
05:47 Let's jump in because that's what I'm left with, Dominic.
05:51 I'm left with, I love democracy, I love America.
05:55 And that's what I think this is about.
05:57 - Question, it was very important for us
06:00 to lean into the versatility, both for the film,
06:04 but also for the experience of the role players.
06:07 And no one has mentioned that this event
06:09 actually took place on January 6th.
06:11 So when folks walked in from the street,
06:14 there already was a kind of electricity
06:16 and a kind of emotion that was in the air
06:18 before we even sat down to begin this war game.
06:21 But you asked about social media.
06:22 Social media was the main weapon of choice for the red cell.
06:27 And one of the critiques of the administration,
06:31 of the Hotham administration was they didn't pay
06:33 enough attention to what they call the information space.
06:36 But for us as filmmakers, absolutely, it had to feel real.
06:41 We didn't call it Twitter, we didn't call it X.
06:44 It was our own sort of brand of social media,
06:47 but it needed to feel like an assault.
06:50 And at one point in the movie,
06:53 there's what we call a tweet storm,
06:55 as the president is at this sort of moment of maximum heat
07:00 in terms of what is the right choice.
07:04 And the noise from social media is real.
07:08 - What brought this exercise so much credibility
07:11 is Vette Voice and Janessa and her colleagues
07:15 who are former military generals
07:17 and other well-connected people in the political world,
07:19 they recruited the cast.
07:20 They brought people to this exercise
07:22 who have held office, the highest political office
07:25 in the United States, governors, senators,
07:27 former four-star generals.
07:28 They cast those roles because those people
07:30 have that experience to play the president,
07:33 to play his advisors.
07:34 And we were there to capture that in all its authenticity.
07:38 So as documentary filmmakers,
07:41 we do often exercise some discretion over cast.
07:44 In this case, we didn't choose the role players.
07:46 We didn't know if they could act,
07:49 but they were really playing themselves.
07:50 And that's what makes this film so extraordinary.
07:52 They're improvising their characters in the moment.
07:55 We didn't know what course they would go
07:57 in making these decisions,
07:58 whether the United States would descend
08:00 into chaos and anarchy,
08:01 or whether President Bullock, played by Governor Hotham,
08:04 I'm sorry, Governor Bullock, playing President Hotham.
08:07 - Now that is a classic Freudian slip.
08:09 - There we go.
08:10 See, even--
08:11 - If you wanna promote your film, I get it.
08:14 - Even I've gotten confused.
08:15 We actually have President Hotham buttons on.
08:18 But I think that what was so exciting about this
08:21 is Janessa and her team and the role players
08:24 gave us a ringside seat in the White House Situation Room
08:28 to see the president manage this crisis.
08:30 And that for me, as someone who's wrestling
08:32 with what our political future is,
08:34 where are we headed as a country?
08:35 This is a way of confronting that question.
08:37 And I think that's what this film does.
08:39 It invites an audience into this conversation
08:41 about what are these risks?
08:42 And these are people with real experience
08:44 who are saying we should take this threat seriously.
08:47 - Look, I think when President Biden goes
08:51 and gives speeches about the threat to democracy,
08:54 he sees this.
08:56 The administration understands that we can disagree
09:01 and differ on policy issues,
09:04 but preservation of the norms of democracy are essential.
09:09 So no, I haven't, like I haven't reached out and said,
09:12 might be good film promotion,
09:14 but look, you gotta see this film.
09:16 But I think the notion that this is just,
09:23 four different administrations were involved in this,
09:27 Democrats and Republicans,
09:30 like this isn't a January 6th retrospective.
09:34 This is capturing the concerns
09:37 and the real concerns that are out there now.
09:39 - Well, the military is a reflection of our society.
09:41 So extremist elements that we're seeing across our society
09:44 are equally reflected in the military.
09:46 And unfortunately, this topic has become so politicized
09:49 that for the Department of Defense
09:50 to really take this seriously
09:52 and implement some of the screening measures,
09:54 even that has become controversial.
09:56 There have been house panels that have descended into chaos
09:59 because there are members who think that to bring this up
10:02 is disrespectful to the troops.
10:04 I believe that if you love something, you make it stronger,
10:06 you make it better.
10:07 And so investigating folks
10:09 who are participating in this activity,
10:11 making sure that they're not joining in the first place
10:13 and making sure that our veterans
10:14 are not being targeted for recruitment is of utmost priority.
10:17 But I also wanna say to the President Biden question,
10:21 the President has articulated his concerns about this.
10:24 But one of the goals I hope of this film
10:26 is to have a conversation in living rooms across the country
10:30 because this type of insurrection or chaos
10:34 only occurs when everyday people decide
10:36 to take those actions and participate in those activities.
10:39 So it isn't just about
10:41 what the President of the United States does
10:43 or someone in uniform,
10:44 but somebody who's in their living room,
10:46 who's in a chat room,
10:48 listening to this type of extremist ideology,
10:51 buying into it and deciding that it makes sense
10:54 to take up arms against the United States of America.
10:56 And that is what concerns me the most.
10:58 - If you go back and take a look at
11:03 kind of the continuation of this issue,
11:06 Janet Napolitano, when she was the head of Homeland Security
11:10 actually issued a report about this challenge
11:14 of maintaining kind of ideological,
11:18 an ideological kind of neutrality within the military
11:24 and that many Iraqi and Afghani war vets
11:28 were coming home radicalized.
11:30 And so everybody wants to pinpoint this
11:33 on the former President Trump,
11:35 but this was ripe ground for a long, long time.
11:38 And so I think that the worst enemy for us
11:42 in meeting this challenge is denial.
11:45 And where we get into challenges
11:49 is when people equate having this discussion
11:53 with curtailing conservative thought.
11:56 You know, there is a difference between,
11:58 you know, insurrectionist thought and conservative thought.
12:02 And that line is often blurred in the political discourse.
12:06 And so recently in Minot at the airbase,
12:09 there was an order issued saying,
12:13 if you're going to attend a political rally,
12:15 you know, please be aware of what our standards are
12:19 in the military.
12:20 And it ignited a firestorm of dialogue.
12:23 And so is that a bad thing?
12:25 I think not.
12:26 I think the dialogue needs to be there
12:28 and we need to have these tough conversations,
12:31 but they need to be reasoned.
12:33 And they can't be just everybody picking a side
12:36 and then shouting across the divide.
12:38 It's gotta be a common purpose to defend our democracy,
12:43 but also have that space for everybody's political thought
12:48 to be represented as long as it's not insurrectionist.
12:51 (upbeat music)
12:54 (upbeat music)
12:56 (upbeat music)