Entertainment
'Stopping the Steal' examines Trump's attempt to subvert 2020 election, and what it means for 2024
Getting folks to watch a documentary about the Big Lie is a Big Ask. Who wants to relive that horrible chapter in America’s political history, especially while we’re writing a new, possibly less-horrible chapter?
Despite its title, HBO’s “Stopping the Steal” is as much about what lies ahead of us as it is about that other election that put Joe Biden in office and then-President Trump on a warpath. The 90-minute film, which premieres at 9 p.m. Tuesday on HBO, explores the depth and veracity of Trump’s scheme to overturn the election results through the first-hand accounts of the people who were there.
The collective stories of former Trump appointees, staffers and Republican elected officials, who worked and served behind the scenes in the months before and after the election, paint a picture of Trump’s brazen scheme to try to steal the election and what it took to stop him and his allies from succeeding.
Directed by Dan Reed (“The Truth vs. Alex Jones”), “Stopping the Steal” takes viewers back to July 2020, when the president’s popularity was slipping and the election was looming. “By late summer, President Trump starts to grease the wheels for excuses if he lost,” says Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served in 2020 as White House director of strategic communications and assistant to the president. And the film cuts to a summer presser where the former president proclaims, “These elections will be fraudulent. They’ll be fixed or rigged.”
Spanning to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, the film explores chronologically how Trump attempted to hang onto the presidential office, no matter the cost. News and events we’re already familiar with — Trump’s vaguely threatening call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger demanding he “find” the president the votes he needed and Trump’s private admissions that he knew he lost to Biden — take on a new light through the accounts of those who stood between Trump and his nefarious plans.
“Up until the election, you could always appeal to his self-interest — ‘Mr. President, this is a bad idea for you. This will hurt you,’” says former Atty. Gen. William Barr, who served under Trump. “That would work if you appealed to his self-interest. That is what helped keep things within the guardrails.”
Barr says Trump embarked on a “destructive” campaign that reached new levels of depravity immediately following projections that Biden had won the election. “At 2 in the morning [Trump held a news conference], and for him to go out and claim that fraud was underway, it was very dangerous. I started worrying a lot from then on,” Barr says.
Former Trump campaign and White House official Stephanie Grisham says when the president doubled down on the falsehood that the election was rigged, his staff likely knew better. They played along, though, because no one wanted to be the target of his anger. “I guarantee anyone that was around him at the time, despite what they were thinking inside, they were saying, ‘Oh it was stolen, sir,’” Grisham says.
The film juxtaposes accounts such as Grisham’s with footage of Trump and his Big Lie team (who included Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell) spewing accusations about ballot tampering by poll workers, voting by “illegal aliens” and deceased people, and claims that Dominion Voting Systems’ electronic ballot machines had been hacked.
None of it was true, of course, but that didn’t stop them from leaning on local officials in critical swing states such as Arizona and Georgia. “I was for Trump the whole time … and then it started. The steal,” says former Arizona House of Representatives Speaker Rusty Bowers.
Bowers faced intense pressure from the president and Giuliani to go along with their illegal scheme to replace the state’s slate of electors with ones who would elect Trump. The Arizonan recalls an in-person meeting with Giuliani, where Bowers asked for evidence of election fraud. “Rudy, you have the proof?’ Yeah, yeah!’ [Then Jenna said] ‘Oh, I left it back at the hotel.’”
Like many others who refused to prop up the false allegations, Bowers was doxxed and threatened by legions of Trump’s supporters. The film makes it clear that Bowers is among the Republican officials who stood by their principles, but often at great personal cost.
Former Arizona Atty. Gen. Mark Brnovich was another avid Trump supporter heading into the 2020 election. “President Trump did a great job,” he says in the film. “I was right there with him. [Then] he called me and said, ‘Hey, you’ll be the most popular guy in America. You’ll be able to run for president. All you gotta do is say there’s fraud or find some fraud.’” Brnovich didn’t succumb to Trump’s demands, but he also didn’t investigate the matter of the fake electors scheme.
Other participants in the film, however, did put it all on the line to protect democracy, including Raffensperger; Maricopa County Board of Supervisors appointees Clint Hickman and Bill Gates; and Georgia Election Operations Manager Gabriel Sterling. Marc Short, then chief of staff for Vice President Mike Pence, also offers gripping insight into his former boss’ dangerous and precarious position.
Among those in the film who still insist the Big Lie is the Truth are Trump attorney and insurrection architect John Eastman. Also making an appearance is self-proclaimed “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley. You may remember seeing footage of Chansley on Jan. 6, shirtless, clad in a furry, horned helmet and sporting red, white and blue face paint. There’s no need to quote him here.
We’ve lived through this story, so “Stopping the Steal” isn’t a cautionary tale. But it is a powerful reminder of what we should prepare for. “I think Jan. 6 is like the trailer to a movie,” Grisham says. “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.”
Entertainment
Kate Middleton's cancer is now in remission: 'It takes time to adjust to a new normal'
After battling cancer most of last year, Kate Middleton says she’s now in remission.
Catherine, Princess of Wales, who confirmed last March that she had cancer after months of speculation about her health and well-being, said Tuesday that she is focused on recovery.
“It is a relief to now be in remission and I remain [focused] on recovery,” she said in a statement posted on social media. “As anyone who has experienced a cancer diagnosis will know, it takes time to adjust to a new normal. I am however looking forward to a fulfilling year ahead. Thank you to everyone for your continued support.”
Catherine, Princess of Wales, and husband Prince William, who is first in line to the British throne, on Tuesday were named joint patrons of the Royal Marsden — the cancer hospital where Catherine received treatment last year. Since 2007, William has been president of the Royal Marsden, a position that was held previously by his mother, the late Princess Diana.
“I wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you to The Royal Marsden for looking after me so well during the past year,” Catherine said in her statement. “My heartfelt thanks goes to all those who have quietly walked alongside William and me as we have navigated everything. We couldn’t have asked for more. The care and advice we have received throughout my time as a patient has been exceptional.”
In her new role, the 43-year-old princess said she hopes to save more lives and transform the experience of all those affected by cancer by supporting groundbreaking research and clinical excellence, as well as promoting patient and family well-being.
Catherine’s health issues and the royal missteps that followed became a global topic of discussion early last year when Kensington Palace announced that she had to take a break from royal duties after having “major abdominal surgery” in January. Rampant speculation ran amok about the princess’ retreat from the public eye, fueling months of broad concern about her condition and whereabouts.
In March, she made the cancer announcement in a poignant video message that came in the wake of reports that her medical records at the London Clinic were allegedly breached by hospital staffers. She began treatment in late February and announced in September that she had completed it, confirming that she would soon return to light public duties.
The announcement of Catherine’s patronage was made Tuesday during her visit to the Royal Marsden’s hospital in Chelsea. There, the mother of three met with patients being treated with chemotherapy and immunotherapy.
“We were honoured to welcome Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales to The Royal Marsden in Chelsea this morning, and are delighted that Her Royal Highness is now joining His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales in becoming Joint Patrons of our specialist cancer centre,” said Cally Palmer, chief executive of the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.
Palmer said William has been “a wonderful supporter of our work for nearly two decades” and that his and Catherine’s royal patronage is inspiring for staff and patients and “enables us to shine a light on the outstanding work our staff deliver every day for patients and their families.”
During her Tuesday visit, Catherine disclosed some of the side effects she experienced after her cancer treatment, including speech issues and brain fog.
“You think treatment’s finished, crack on with that … daily tasks, but that’s still like a real challenge,” she told hospital staff, according to the Daily Mail. “And talking … the words totally disappear … understanding that as a patient, yes, there are side effects around treatment, but actually there are more long-term side effects.”
Movie Reviews
Movie Review: Teen Temptress, Femme Fatale, or Victim? “Nahir”
“Nahir,” a brooding, glamourized and sexed-up account of a notorious Argentine murder case, is a mystery thriller that aims for engrossing and immersive that never falls short of quite watchable along the way.
Screenwriter Sofia Wilhelmi and director Hernán Gu
erschuny take great pains — with flashbacks and flashbacks within flashbacks — to show us several versions of the title character’s account of what happened the fateful night in which she allegedly killed her allegedly abusive lover.
We’re treated to backstory which dissects the aloof and mysterious teen beauty who either planned a crime of lover’s revenge, carried it out and took some pains to cover up her involvement, or didn’t. Not in the ways the earliest versions of her account of that fateful night played out, anyway.
Valentina Zenera plays Nahir as a vain beauty confident in her allure, even at her (seen in a flashback) quinceañera. Nahir dreams of riding the premiere float at Gualeguaychú’s famed carnival parade and riding that to fame as a model.
Not that she says much of this out loud. Nahir is depicted as inscrutable, controlled and controlling. All the boys fancy her and no one gets more of her attention, and manipulation, than 20 year-old Federico (Simon Hempe).
Nahir says they’re broken up. Then they’re together. As the narrative jumps back and forth from “before the crime” (in Spanish with English subtitles) to “after the crime,” we see both their torrid affair — “torrid” at least in his eyes — and her “No, we weren’t dating” way of describing it to her friends and eventually to the cops.
Because one night, Federico rides his motorbike to his doom.
We see how Nahir takes the “news” of his death. “Poker-faced” barely does that reaction justice. We watch the early questioning, the tear she tries to summon up or fake with a tissue.
And we learn that Nahir’s adored and adoring Dad (César Bordón) is a pistol-packing police officer. If there’s one thing that’s become accepted wisdom the world over in recent years, it’s the idea that police in most any country all consider themselves experts in one thing — knowing what they can get away with, and how.
When Dad says “I’ll get you out of here…I’m working on it. You’ll be home by New Year’s,” Nahir believes it. Is it because of what she knows, or what she knows that he knows?
As we see Nahir’s (perhaps) ex-beauty queen mother (Mónica Antonópulos) primp and prep her for a pageant and for a TV prison interview, we pick up on the dynamic of the household and the narcissism of our heroine.
“No crying,” Mom insists before her interrogation. Or did she? Federico’s come-ons are punctuated with a macho “I get anything I want.” Dad wasn’t shy about showing his pistol to would-be stalkers who stare at Nahir in crowds. His icy “princesa” never betrays any emotion at any of this.
The court case reveals more than just the lovers’ exchanged “love of my life” texts. Protesters demand “justice” for Federico, but witnesses paint a more complicated picture of their on-and-off romance. And as her situation isn’t quickly resolved — one way or the other — and her “story” changes, we wonder what really happened.
I like the way the story’s jumps backwards and forwards in time to wrongfoot the viewer. We’re given just enough information to decide on guilt or innocence, and then new information is brought to light. Think again.
Now on Amazon Prime, “Nahir” was longer when it played in Argentina, and reviews of this “true” story there weren’t the best. Perhaps it’s tighter, as the Prime cut of the film is 14 minutes shorter. Or perhaps Argentines are more invested in the story and uninterested in the doubts “Nahir” suggests.
Zenere, underplaying in ways that hint at the character’s similarities to Amanda Knox — accused because she underreacts to news of a murder — makes her character believably guilty or possibly innocent. And whatever verdict, she ensures the narcissistic Nahir is never seen with a hair out of place or eye shadow and earrings that aren’t perfectly matched, even behind bars.
Rating: TV-16, violence, sex, profanity
Cast: Valentina Zenere, Simon Hempe, Mónica Antonópulos and César Bordón
Credits: Directed by Hernán Guerschuny, scripted by Sofia Wilhelmi. An MGM release on Amazon Prime.
Running time: 1:48
Entertainment
Watch Duty, first responders and Steve Guttenberg: Jimmy Kimmel's ode to 'superheroes' of L.A. fires
Jimmy Kimmel is moved by community support and the commitment of first responders amid a dark period of L.A. history defined by devastating wildfires and immense loss.
Returning Monday to his late-night TV slot, Kimmel delivered an emotional opening monologue about the “very scary, very stressful, very strange week here in L.A.” Several fires broke out last week across Southern California, stoked by a “life-threatening and destructive” windstorm. The most devastating blazes, in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, continue to burn and have damaged or destroyed more than 12,000 structures and killed 24 people.
“It’s been terrible,” Kimmel said after reflecting on the fires, including the since-extinguished Sunset fire that threatened his studio in Hollywood. “Everyone who lives in this city knows someone, most of us multiple people — families, friends, colleagues, neighbors — whose houses burned down, and the truth is we don’t even know it’s over.”
The last week has been a “sickening, shocking, awful experience,” but Kimmel also said a bright spot has been the “beauty from seeing the community coming together to support each other.” After briefly chiding President-elect Donald Trump for railing against California politicians, Kimmel turned the spotlight onto first responders, including the inmate crews that have been battling the wildfires.
“We should never stop thanking them,” Kimmel said. In addition to local and out-of-state first responders, the Emmy-winning host also lauded police, the National Guard, local news reporters and the Watch Duty app.
“Real superheroes,” he added.
Kimmel’s opening segment also praised the Angelenos who have organized donation drives, businesses that have offered support to affected residents and “unexpected hero” Steve Guttenberg. Since last week, the “Police Academy” star has remained in his Palisades neighborhood to aid emergency efforts. Guttenberg told Kimmel his latest mission has included saving a dog and putting out small fires in the area.
Although the fires have brought devastation, Kimmel said, the last week has also been full of various lessons — including those on firefighting terminology and emergency responses.
“I feel like I’m an expert now,” he joked. “Before this happened, most of what I knew about fire safety came from watching ‘Paw Patrol.’”
The final minutes of Kimmel’s 15-minute monologue featured a super-cut of local coverage highlighting community efforts, including donation drives and free meal services.
On Monday, the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” team announced its efforts to give back to people affected by the fires. The production has set up a donation center behind its Hollywood studio, at 6901 Hawthorn Ave. The center will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily until Friday.
SoCal residents should remain vigilant this week as officials voiced concern that a new round of strong winds, paired with dry fuel and low humidity, could result in new fires starting or existing blazes expanding. An unprecedented fourth “particularly dangerous situation” fire weather warning took effect Tuesday morning and is expected to last through Wednesday, affecting swaths of Los Angeles County and surrounding counties.
“Life-threatening and destructive and widespread winds are already here,” Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said during a news conference Tuesday. “We are taking an aggressive, lean forward posture … strategically placing fire patrols and engines in the unimpacted high fire risk areas in the city. We are carefully managing our operations to ensure that we can quickly respond to any new fires.”
Times staff writers Rong-Gon Lin II, Hannah Fry and Grace Toohey contributed to this report.
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