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Donald Trump’s efforts to block the certification of the 2020 election is in the spotlight in a new documentary as it probes the former president’s ability to surround himself with so-called “yes men” who will do his bidding.
Stopping the Steal, the documentary available on HBO on September 17 at 9pm, tracks Trump’s extraordinary efforts from Election Day 2020 through January 6 to stay in power despite his election loss. The film reveals the former president’s reliance on so-called “yes men,” a group that includes his allies and conspiracy theorists alike, to boost his baseless claims while many elected officials refused to bend to Trump’s will.
Stephanie Grisham, a former Trump White House official, said in the film that she believes Trump knew he lost, “But he’s a narcissist and his ego will not accept defeat.”
Grisham, who has become a Trump critic after serving in his White House, said his ego, paired with a group of unwavering Trump supporters, strengthened his mission: “When you have people who will so willingly come around you and tell you you didn’t lose and the things you want to hear … that enables him to double down and triple down.”
Trump’s refusal to accept the election outcome came in many different forms. He put pressure on officials to support his election fraud claims in various states, including asking Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to help him “find 11,780 votes,” launched legal challenges to the election results as his allies apparently coordinated fake electors schemes across the country, and struck a chord with his unwavering base who in turn spread conspiracy theories that furthered his election fraud messaging.
“The guys on the grassroots level, I think they really believe,” Dan Reed told The Guardian. “I don’t think they have any doubt that the election was stolen, because they inhabit a universe in which that is a given.”
One of these unwavering believers featured in the film is Jacob Chansley, better known as the “QAnon Shaman” who pleaded guilty to a federal charge after storming the Capitol in a headdress and a spear. Throughout the year leading up to the 2020 election, Chansley was spotted at Trump rallies holding the sign: “Q sent me.”
While Chansley supported the former president from afar, the current Republican nominee also had “yes men” in his inner circle. Some of his attorneys, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell, launched a massive media campaign accusing the election of having been “stolen” and lawsuits challenging the election results. At the “Save America” rally on January 6, Giuliani repeated Trump’s “rigged” election claims before telling a crowd: “If we’re wrong, we will be made fools of... But if we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail. So let’s have trial by combat.”
All four attorneys were charged in the Georgia criminal case related to election subversion allegations —Ellis and Powell have pleaded guilty.
Giuliani and Eastman pleaded not guilty in the case as well as in a similar case in Arizona. Ellis has agreed to cooperate with Arizona prosecutors.
Also in Georgia, Giuliani defamed a mother-daughter duo of election workers after baselessly accusing them of “quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine,” among other unfounded claims that led to death threats against the women. He owes them nearly $150 million in damages — an amount that prompted him to declare bankruptcy.
Giuliani — along with Trump and his former chief of staff Mark Meadows — are also listed as unindicted co-conspirators in an ongoing case in Michigan, accusing 16 individuals of falsely trying to certify the state for Trump. Even Trump himself is facing federal charges in an election interference case.
In contrast to his “yes men,” the documentary also captures many of the GOP officials who stood up to Trump. After Trump lost the election, in the face of the then-president’s groundless claims, former Attorney General Bill Barr said the Department of Justice found no evidence of election fraud. He resigned weeks later.
In the film, he recalls Trump’s 2am news conference: “For him to go out and claim that fraud was underway, it was very dangerous. I started worrying a lot from then on.”
Another Trump Republican, former Arizona House of Representatives Speaker Rusty Bowers, was pressured by Trump and Giuliani after the election defeat. He says in the film: “I was for Trump the whole time … and then it started. The steal.”
“I had every motivation,”Bowers says, but he never saw proof of the election fraud claims and refused to act on them.
While Giuliani visited him in person, Trump called Bowers on more than one occasion. In one phone call, Bowers told the then-president: “I voted for you. I worked for you. I campaigned for you. I just won’t do anything illegal for you.”
The documentary premiers just 48 days before the 2024 election.
“I think January 6 is like the trailer to a movie,” Grisham warns in the film. “That’s the one thing with Donald Trump that I’ve learned. You think he’ll just go this far and there’s not more. There’s always more. He takes it as far as it will go.”
