The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism by Jeffrey Toobin

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism by Jeffrey Toobin https://amzn.to/3KmvoWr The definitive account of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the enduring legacy of Timothy McVeigh, leading to the January 6 insurrection—from acclaimed journalist Jeffrey Toobin. Timothy McVeigh wanted to start a movement. Speaking to his lawyers days after the Oklahoma City bombing, the Gulf War veteran expressed no regrets: killing 168 people was his patriotic duty. He cited the Declaration of Independence from memory: “Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” He had obsessively followed the siege of Waco and seethed at the imposition of President Bill Clinton’s assault weapons ban. A self-proclaimed white separatist, he abhorred immigration and wanted women to return to traditional roles. As he watched the industrial decline of his native Buffalo, McVeigh longed for when America was great. New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin traces the dramatic history and profound legacy of Timothy McVeigh, who once declared, “I believe there is an army out there, ready to rise up, even though I never found it.” But that doesn’t mean his army wasn’t there. With news-breaking reportage, Toobin details how McVeigh’s principles and tactics have flourished in the decades since his death in 2001, reaching an apotheosis on January 6 when hundreds of rioters stormed the Capitol. Based on nearly a million previously unreleased tapes, photographs, and documents, including detailed communications between McVeigh and his lawyers, as well as interviews with such key figures as Bill Clinton, Homegrown reveals how the story of Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing is not only a powerful retelling of one of the great outrages of our time, but a warning for our future. About the Author Jeffrey Toobin is the New York Times bestselling author of American Heiress, The Oath, The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, Too Close to Call, A Vast Conspiracy, The Run of His Life: The People vs. O.J. Simpson, and Opening Arguments. A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, he lives with his family in New York.

Hi, folks. Chris Voss here with a little station break. I hope you're enjoying the show so far. We'll resume here in a second. I'd like to invite you to come to my coaching, speaking, and training courses website. You can also see our new podcast over there at chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Over there, you can find all the different stuff that we do for speaking engagements if you'd like to hire me, training courses that we offer, and coaching for leadership, management,

entrepreneurism, podcasting, corporate stuff, with over 35 years of experience in business and running companies as CEO. And be sure to check out Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Now back to the show. Yeah, I think you guys stopped me, and the problem at the end of the minute now is the idiots can find each other. We've appreciate you guys stopping by. And doing all the good stuff that's out there.

We've got an amazing guest on the show today. And I've been really excited. I've got to tell you, there's very few books that I read a lot of books, of course, as you probably know, since we have so many great authors on the show. But starting sometime yesterday in the morning, I started reading this book. And I've been enthralled with it. And I'm only like chapter, I think, 25. And I just can't put it down. I'm just sucked into it.

And it's probably one of the most exhaustive, detailed, purported documents. His parents, his upbringing. One of the most documented things. I think I've ever read, to my understanding, if I read the book correctly, when extremism and the mother of abandonment. So we're going to get into some of that today.

And I think you're going to learn a lot. And the connection of it to january 6th some of the things that we uh deal with challenges every day i've seen of course in our environment being single in america here is the impact of how much you've heard some things you know some kind of some things going on a childhood uh anyway uh he is the author of what's the word i'm looking for him out may 2nd their parents 23 homegrown, trauma, and the rise of right-wing extremists. Jeffrey Toobin joins us on the show. He'll be talking to us about his amazing book.

He's an author about the definitive account of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. And Jeffrey is the New York Times bestselling author of American Heritage. He grew up outside Buffalo, Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, where his father wanted a GM plant for 30 years, and his grandfather wanted the same GM plant for 30 years. That plant was in terminal decline by the time McVeigh came along. You can say it either way. Latin is not my first language, so I can't really say for sure.

But I think loud is the way it's usually referred to. Loud. I flunked second grade. That's a callback joke we do on the show. He became obsessed with guns. But Jeffrey's smarter than I am because he is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. And he lives with his family in New York. Welcome to the show, Jeffrey. His parents had their show, Jeffrey. Hi, Chris. I'm Greg. So, give us any dot coms. Where do you want people to follow you on the interwebs in the sky?

The best place to follow me is, I was going to say Twitter, but are you allowed to say Twitter anymore? Do we know what it's called this week? I don't know. It's at Jeffrey too. He joined the Army and was a successful soldier.

There you go. Those of you watching this five to ten years from now, you always get the weird comments on YouTube. This is the week that Twitter turned it to X. As you said, he became a very dedicated listener to Rush Limbaugh. If you look at each of these individual categories, it's important to point out most vets don't commit terrible crimes.

Most Rush Limbaugh that are the listeners don't commit crimes. Most people from broken homes don't commit crimes. But when you get the totality of these influences and what I think is just a twisted, frankly

evil character. All of that ended up in the trials of McVeigh and Ness. The bombing was in 1995. The trials were separated and they were moved to Denver to change the venue. And I covered both. And I was

fascinated by the story even then. You know, the part of your book I was fascinated by the story. You know, the part of your book I was reading in the middle of the night when I got to the gym, I got to the part where you talked about the victims of the thing. And you almost made me start bawling in the gym. It was moving to read that part of the book.

And, you know, the famous photo that everyone's seen. But, you know, it told the story and the humanity of that experience and what people went through. And I thought that was a good reminder for people to remember about. I got very interested in that case

and I saw that the suspects were all affiliated with the Michigan militia. Now, I knew that Terry Nichols, who was the second defendant to convey that sort of message, was also affiliated with the militias and today but some of the same people were actually involved so i started one of the dramatic just a few weeks later of someone who was trapped in the real riot at the capitol and a woman and who uh again i saw the ideological similarities between the nine five colleagues

just fell away in front of her and i decided to take a look and one of the things I always tried to keep in mind was that each one of the Oklahoma City bombing was especially relevant to me because of the ideological ties I saw

between then and now. You know, that's the thing I really loved about the book is the parallels that you took and ran between the two. Well, no one knows for sure. And there's an interesting reason why. Because the people of Oklahoma City, and particularly the people who were injured, recognized that hospitals were going to be overwhelmed. in the book about Timothy LeVay's short-term thinking mindset is the same as what goes into January 60th.

And you paint a very... The book is incredibly detailed. I'm surprised you didn't tell me what everyone ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It's that detailed. It makes it very engaging to where you're deeply sucked into it because you have all the information.

But I always thought that was a great tribute to people of Oklahoma City, especially to people in the Murrah building. I hit that in a research area that I didn't expect. And as someone who's tried to take care of crime trials for a long time, I never had this kind of opportunity. in the aftermath if they could leave the building on their own. Stephen Jones and you detail about how we came together as Americans. I think the big significant two of the Timothy

story and the bombing was it's one of several big events in our nation's history. At least my life. Maybe that's why I feel impacted by it, and maybe most Americans do. But it was that moment that something happened that was so extraordinary, on or off soil, and you knew when you woke up the next morning that life would never be the same.

After 9-11, all the different things that have happened to us over the years, you knew that we were never going to be the same. We were going to live in a completely different world, and new generations would never know what it's like to go to the airport, for instance, without being patented. Right. And one of the things about videos and audio that was at the University of Texas,

you don't remember. I certainly didn't remember. This story is in part about politics. And the fact that it has an ideological evolution of right-wing extremism. But it's also the bombing of April of 1995. It is the story of how McVeigh in 1995 threw criminal cases. In fact, on April 19th,

I was in Lansido's court in Los Angeles covering the trial. But that had an influence. In fact, on April 19th, I was in Lansito's court something that was actually very difficult to pull off. But that had an influence. Merrick Garland was the Justice Department official. All of that. Who was in charge of the investigation. Who wanted an investigation and trial that was completely different. The likes of which I certainly had never seen before.

And it's amazing, too, because, I, there was like a bunch of bunting idiots that were on the place in this thing. But, you know, they have this ideological ideology sort of slant. And it's interesting, a lot of the same influence as Rush Limbaugh

and all those things played into it. For those people who don't remember much about what went on back then with the bombings, tell us why this is an important event in American history, if you would. It was also when the Uniball was mailing Bob, I think, across the country and killing people. And in fact, because I've been so steeped in this and a lot of people do remember it, it's important for me to recognize that a lot of people taken off the Oklahoma City investigation. I'm sorry, he was taken off the Oklahoma City investigation to try to catch the Unabomber. He didn't know much about this.

On April 19th, because of the proximity between the Unabomber and McVeigh, they've often been kind of looped together, linked together in the sidewalk in front of the Alfred P. Murrow Federal Building, which was true of Ted Kaczynski, but not true of McVeigh. McVeigh was not a little wolf. He was part of a movement. He was also not anti-government.

He was against Bill Clinton's government in the 1990s. So I think putting things in the 1990s. Tremendous, tremendous explosion. Putting things in the historical context, even though the 1990s aren't as many people may remember, it was a daycare center on the second floor of the Burr Building and 11 of the 19 children were killed in that daycare center. And it was, at that time, widely described profile of him, especially over his history, that you see in the same with January 6th, you see other people

who radicalized, you know, we talked about incels, people who do school shootings, things of that nature, the messianic sort of attitudes and minds that they have. You know, when I was reading the introduction of your book, you know, you were talking about how you know,

Timothy felt like, you know, this was his purpose. i'm like you're gonna kill children and like one that i don't think they killed children in the revolution yeah you're absolutely right but he was a fanatic and uh and you know the three main links i saw what i saw between uh mcveigh was to show why the story was still relevant. The first was an absolute obsession with crime story. There you go. And would you say that some of the same influences are still kicking around?

I think you detail in the book that it's even worse now with the propagation of the Internet. Because back then, they couldn't find other people when they were idiots to run around with. Because it was the second anniversary of the disastrous FBI raid at Waco. It's a big part of the evolution of the story. But he was also just as equally motivated by something that happened on September 14, 1994. He told Bill Clinton to sign the assault weapon that always sticks with me. I knew there was an army out there, but I just couldn't find them. And he did look for the gun shows to try to talk to people.

But he didn't have the personality to recruit others. And it's my belief that they both believed violence was justified in the bombing conspiracy. But the big difference is, but he was right, that there was an army out there, but once you had the internet, that because this broader radicalization and mobilization as you look at the right-wing violence of

subsequent years, whether it was the plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer, which was organized over private Facebook groups, or the mass shootings in El Paso, or in Pittsburgh, or the synagogue, or the church in South Carolina, or the rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. All of that was both organized and motivated, associating themselves with the American Revolution. And McVeigh had memorized much of the Declaration of Independence. is more pressing than ever because those ideas are in faster and easier circulation. Jefferson is justifying the rebellion against the British. That's how McVeigh saw himself as an heir of the patriots of the American Revolution, as did the January 6th rioters. And what's interesting, you talk about how they were influenced by waco by ruby ridge you know all these different events and you see how that that's still playing out today those influences are those people that there's probably a psychological word for it they use those sort of events as as operations for their violence the the bundy's uh the bundy

ranch thing you know their big thing was what ruby, Waco, Texas, all those sort of events. And it's still playing out today. And I think that's what makes it a higher danger. And there are dog whistles today. of his 2024 campaign in Waco, because Waco has become a symbol of the evil federal government that needs to be disciplined or overturned. As you point out, the Bundy Ranch people. And the book that inspired McVeigh, this novel called The Turner Diaries, about a

right-wing rebellion that leads to the overthrow of the evil federal government, that too was read and inspired many of the January 6th rioters. So i mean the the links are are not hard to find yeah and and he gets the idea timothy does to do the bombing of a federal building based off of that he does i mean and and um the turners iris is really a remarkable it's a horrible book but um it's it's it's very vivid it's about how it's a novel, the conceit of which is that the government, the federal government has been taken over by an evil cabal of blacks and Jews. And the first thing they do is they pass a law called the Cohen Act. Very subtle there that calls for the confiscation of all private firearms. Earl Turner, who's the narrator and the hero of the book,

gets a truck, fills it with fertilizer and fuel oil, sets it by the FBI building in Washington, and blows up the building, killing about 700 people. McVeigh very explicitly modeled what he did on what Earl Turner did in the Turner Diaries. In the book, it led to a full-fledged civil war against the evil federal government, and that's what McVeigh wanted. Fortunately, that didn't happen. You know, and you see this theme throughout all these guys, you know, we're going to start a race war, we're going to start a civil war the jews will not replace this bit in charlottesville um there was the uh young kid who shot up the baptist church you know he

thought he was going to they don't think they're going to start like a race war and they're going to awaken everything but anyway i i love the book it's so detailed it almost reads like a screenplay and when i read it it felt like i was watching a movie you know you detail what he was going through in his cell when he was just pulled over and and booked for i think a bad license plate um there's a there's a limited series uh in the works uh if the uh writers guild and the screen actors guild strike ever ends i i have lots of reasons to want the strike day well There you go. Well, they can make an AI of you and just put you in there. I think that's what Hollywood's trying to do. I think that's,

uh, I want people to watch. No one wants to watch an AI of me. I'm sure. They'll just put you in one of those, uh, Futurama tanks, head tanks and put you in there.

So, uh, you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you