Episode 2: The Brooklyn Boys

Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra

NBC News

History, Congressman, Radicalism, Insurrection, Hitler, Senators, Right Wing, Constitution, Conspiracy, Radical, Political, Corruption, Violence, Archive, Senate, World War 2, Rachel Maddow Presents, Germany, Mystery, American, Politics, Fascism, Plot, Democracy, 1940s, Communists, Investigation, World War 1, News, Msnbc, Rachel Maddow, Overthrow, Dictatorship, Nbc News, Propaganda, Jews, Attack, Communism, Congress, Nbc, Anti-semitism, Government, Rachel Maddow Presents Ultra, Fascist, Ultra, Maddow, Nazis, Treachery, 1930s, Justice, Sedition, Extremism, Anti-semitic

4.8 • 31.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 October 2022

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The most prominent media figure in America calls for the creation of a militia, armed Americans willing to use violence to get their way. What they want is to overthrow the U.S. government and to end democracy in this country – by force. Their plot raised alarming indications that the federal government is not up to the task of dealing with that kind of homegrown threat.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It started with a photo, a photo of guns on the front page of an old newspaper clipping
0:10.5	from the year 1940.
0:12.9	That's where it started.
0:14.5	But things really got cooking with the kind of phone call that makes your stomach flip
0:18.3	over.
0:19.3	I got a phone call from the declassification unit.
0:23.6	It's always a little bit chilling to show up to your apartment and have a voicemail
0:29.0	from the FBI at the other end of the line.
0:32.4	That's Charles Gallagher.
0:33.8	Back when he was a sophomore in college, years before he got that stomach flipping call
0:38.0	from the FBI, he was struggling with a research paper that was coming due for a class he was
0:43.4	taking on national security.
0:46.6	He didn't have a topic for his paper.
0:48.1	He couldn't figure out what he wanted to write about.
0:50.3	So he just started flipping through old newspapers looking for inspiration.
0:55.1	And what he found, it just left off the page for him.
0:58.6	One of the front pages in January of 1940 was of young men carrying what seemed to me
1:06.0	to be huge rifles.
1:09.1	And it indicated that they tried to overthrow the government of the United States.
1:13.1	And when I looked more closely at the headline, it said that they were followers of a Catholic
1:18.1	priest from Detroit.
1:19.8	A group of armed American men led by a Catholic priest with a plot to overthrow the government
	...

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