All language subtitles for While.The.Rest.Of.Us.Die.S01E01.1080p.WEB.h264-BAE

[ Explosion ]

[ People shouting ]

-2020 has just been
one of the worst years

of American history.
It's tragic.

It's absolutely tragic what
has happened to this country.

-Americans have never felt
so afraid and vulnerable.

-We have kind of
lost the ability

to track how bad things are,

because every week,
there's something new.

-Who do you serve?!
Who do you protect?!

-Do something!

-But what if the worst
is yet to come,

with no one in charge
planning to help us?

-For over 70 years,

our leaders have told us one
thing under the bright lights.

-The protection of the lives
and property of Americans

is the responsibility
of all public officials.

-Government's first duty
is to protect the people.

-I care.
We're trying.

-The country stands with you.

We'll do all
in our power to help.

-But America's shadow government

has spent trillions of dollars
on secret plans.

That serve one premise...

When the shit
really hits the fan,

we're on our own.

-I have nothing.
Nothing.

-For decades,
the U.S. government invested

trillions of dollars
in a secret plan to save itself

while the rest of us die.

♪♪

♪♪

-The most important decisions
being made about the future

of the United States
and the fate of the Earth

are being made in secret
by a small elite.

-Engineers too sick to maintain
the power grid?

The government's elite
have massive generators.

Cellphone system craps out?

They've got their own
secure network.

Supermarket shelves empty?

They've stockpiled
enough food for years.

And don't get us
started on toilet paper.

They've got a forest's
worth stashed away.

-It's this massive
secret project

that funneled unbelievable
amounts of money

towards the survival

of the president
and officials of government

and away from the betterment
of American citizens' lives.

♪♪

-I would like to begin

by announcing
some important developments

in our war
against the Chinese virus.

-March 24, 2020.

President Trump holds
a press conference

to propose an end date
for the growing global crisis.

-Easter is our timeline.

What a great timeline
that would be.

-My question is, you have
two doctors on stage with you.

Have either of them told you
that's a realistic timeline?

-I'd love to see it
come even sooner,

but I just think it would be
a beautiful timeline.

Joe?

-But even as the President

downplays the pandemic
publicly...

♪♪

-It's going to disappear.

One day, it's like a miracle.
It will disappear.

-Trump knows something
that most Americans don't.

If the pandemic spirals
out of control,

there are secret plans underway
for him and his top officials,

even his immediate family,

to be evacuated
to secure facilities

designed to withstand
Armageddon.

-Thank you very much.
Thank you.

-On the very same day
that Trump was telling

the American people the pandemic

would magically
disappear by Easter,

1,600 miles away,

a military team is settling
into life underground.

-Cheyenne Mountain is one of
the U.S. government's

three main doomsday bunkers.

-Garrett Graff is an historian
and journalist.

His book, "Raven Rock,"

was the first in-depth look at
the government's secret bunkers.

-Inside the
Cheyenne Mountain bunker,

the U.S. government hid a team
of military commanders.

Their mission...
To man the nation's defense

if it goes full zombie
apocalypse aboveground.

It's all part of a plan
that was hatched 70 years ago.

-In the 1950s, the government
came up with plans

for a Deep Underground
Command Center,

where the president
and, you know,

a few hundred staff members
not only could take shelter

but also could direct
a nuclear war.

-The plan is called
Continuity of Government,

or COG.

-At any moment, we could see
thousands of members

of the government
completely wiped out,

but there's a secondary
government, a shadow government,

that is ready to take over
at a moment's notice.

♪♪

[ Explosion ]

-These weren't just
run-of-the-mill bunkers.

Some of them were entire
hollowed-out mountains

with small freestanding cities
that could support a population

of even a thousand people
for a month or longer.

♪♪

-The bunker system
remained a secret

until 1974
when a commercial airliner

crashed into the side
of a mountain in Virginia.

♪♪

The crash revealed a massive
secret installation

deep inside the mountain,
known as Mount Weather.

♪♪

-Mount Weather is now
an unclassified facility.

Everybody knows about it.

But back then,
it was highly secret.

It was heavily guarded.
And it's where a continuity team

would go in the event
of a nuclear war.

-The idea was that government
officials could go there,

and they would be able
to operate the government

even when almost everything else
had been wiped off the planet.

-There would be
interagency teams,

people from
the State Department,

the Justice Department,
the Pentagon, CIA,

and domestic agencies.

-Top civilian officials would
hide away in Mount Weather.

But few knew
there was another secret bunker.

♪♪

-Every so often,
you bump up against

Continuity of Government plans.

Sometimes you would
spot helicopters

practicing for evacuations
in the skies over the city.

And every so often, in a bar,

an official would talk about
the secret facilities

that they were whisked off to.

-Graff's discovery of this
world, and the most secret

of these facilities,
happened by accident.

-A colleague of mine found

a government-intelligence
I.D. badge

on the floor
of a parking garage.

On the back were directions.

[ Engine starts ]

And it just made me wonder,
"What else is out there?"

So that launched me
on this journey

to try to map
this secret world out there

that I didn't realize
ever existed.

And the biggest thing I found

was the doomsday facility
known as Raven Rock.

-Raven Rock, like Area 51,
remains one of

the U.S. government's
most classified installations.

Could you describe
Raven Rock to me?

Like, what it is
and what it's for?

-No.

-Raven Rock is an underground
backup Pentagon.

-It's the most unbelievable
place you can imagine.

You're 768 feet
below the surface.

-Don Cammel spent 3 1/2 years
at Raven Rock

as part of the president's
communication team.

He's never spoken
on camera before

about his time
working in the secret bunker.

-Basically, they carved out
a city underground

that could survive a direct hit
from a nuclear blast.

After you go through
the security, you walk in,

and it's basically
an underground tunnel.

There's a glass door
that was 3 1/2-foot thick

that weighed 30 tons.

You go through, like,
an airlock,

and they had two of those doors.

And then, you walk
another half a mile.

-A half mile deeper into the
mountain is the bunker itself.

-And you're going
past five buildings.

Those represent the five rings
of the Pentagon.

And each of those buildings
are three stories tall,

and they probably have 50
to 80 offices per floor.

-The buildings
are mounted on springs

to survive the shock waves
from a nuclear blast.

-There's a common cafeteria

capable of serving 3,000 people

three meals a day
for 30 days on lockdown.

They had a barbershop in there
with one chair.

-It's got massive reservoirs,
generators,

even a crematorium, if needed,

post office, medical facilities,

and emergency command
and communication links

to the U.S. military
all around the world.

-As part of
the White House team,

Cammel had access to the most
restricted part of the bunker,

the presidential suite.

-The presidential suite
is a very secure area.

The other people in the site,
they had no access.

And they were very, very curious

as far as
what was behind the door.

The presidential bedroom was,
of course, a king-size bed,

and then there was a separate
kitchen set up in our suite

to feed 30 or 40 people.

The presidential office
overlooked the war room,

which had the same display
that was a duplicate

of what they had
in the Pentagon.

We would look down,
and, of course, they'd look up,

and they couldn't see
through the glass

'cause it was a one-way glass.

-To understand why these bunkers
were created,

you have to rewind to the 1950s.

♪♪

For some,
it was America's golden age.

But it was also the dawn
of a ruthless fight

for global supremacy...

-The United States
and the Soviet Union

stand on the verge of direct
military confrontation.

- in which both sides
built up an arsenal

of spectacularly
powerful weapons...

♪♪

that meant the next world war

would not last years
but minutes.

-There might be as little
as 15 minutes' notice

of an attack that could wipe out

much of civilization
as we know it.

And so the Eisenhower
administration began

an elaborate process
of contingency planning.

And if we only had
a few minutes,

then they didn't want to have
any sort of layers

of review or approval
that would slow down the process

of responding
to a major emergency.

-To avoid mass panic,
the U.S. government created

a nationwide
civil-defense program.

-We all know the atomic bomb
is very dangerous.

Since it may be used against us,

we must get ready for it.

-Growing up in the 1950s,
there were fallout shelters,

places where you would go
if the nuclear war occurred.

And in those fallout shelters,
there was water.

There were prescription drugs.

The notion really was that
you could go there and survive.

-The government starts
telling Americans that

not only can they survive
a nuclear war,

but they could go
on living their lives

as long as they come together
in an unquestioning mass.

[ Explosion ]

-Duck and cover!

This family knows
that even a thin cloth

helps protect them.

Even a newspaper
can save you from a bad burn.

-But while the public was
being told to build shelters

and duck under their desks,

the government elite were going
to hide under tons of rock

and reinforced concrete.

-There was an awareness
at the highest level

of the American government
that these civil-defense drills

were really window dressing.

This was a massive,
massive propaganda effort

that bore almost no relationship
to reality whatsoever.

President Eisenhower knew
that this was all bullshit.

He said things like,
"If nuclear war comes,

there aren't going to be
enough bulldozers

to scrape the bodies
off the streets.

[ Explosion ]

♪♪

-If the Soviet bombs
started dropping,

everyone was going to die.

Everyone, that is,
but the chosen few.

The president
and the government elite

would ride out Armageddon in
massive nuclear-proof bunkers...

♪♪

while American citizens
died in the millions.

And while the average American

was oblivious to this elitist
double standard,

in other circles,
it was famously mocked.

- "Dr. Strangelove,"
the Kubrick film,

does an amazing job of parodying
the whole notion

of a nuclear bunker

and decisions being made
by a small elite.

-Of course,
it would be absolutely vital

that our top government
and military men be included.

It will foster and impart
the required principles

of leadership and tradition.

[ Grunts ]

-But the truth is
even stranger than fiction.

The bunkers are
just the beginning.

These secret government plans
include a secret Air Force,

secret communication networks,
a secret monetary system,

and a classified plan
to suspend democracy itself.

And it all still exists

and could be put
into action right now.

♪♪

-The U.S. government spent
billions of dollars

to build a secret bunker system

to save themselves
in the case of nuclear war.

One thing the system lacks
is how to restrain

an out-of-control president
with his finger on the button

from starting that war
in the first place.

♪♪

July 2017...
Kim Jong-un's regime

test-fires an intercontinental
ballistic missile

capable of hitting
the United States.

President Trump counters
with a barrage of his own.

-North Korea best not
make any more threats

to the United States.

They will be met
with fire and fury

like the world has never seen.

-And a war of words
quickly escalates

into a full-blown crisis.

-The United States has great
strength and patience,

but if it is forced
to defend itself,

we will have no choice

but to totally destroy
North Korea.

-Meanwhile...

As the crisis mounts,

North Korea's propaganda machine
goes into overdrive.

While Trump's late-night tweets
caused many to fear

the United States
is 140 characters away from war.

♪♪

-The president
of the United States,

in a split second,
without questioning,

can end the world itself,

which is a completely
unprecedented

and disturbing development
for an executive branch

which has grown
in power and scope.

-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis

and Homeland Security Secretary
John Kelly

made a pact at the beginning
of the Trump administration

to ensure that one of them
was always available

to clarify any orders
coming out of the White House.

-During the North Korean
missile crisis,

James Mattis even sleeps
in his clothes,

ready for action
in a moment's notice.

But there's little they
or any other top officials

can do to stop the president

if he wants to launch
a nuclear strike.

-The United States is ready,
willing, and able.

Rocket Man is on
a suicide mission

for himself and for his regime.

-We have a president
who is so dangerous

because this is a person who not
only has unilateral authority

to use nuclear weapons
but has multiple times now

and repeatedly shown
a desire to do so.

At one point, he actually
considered the idea

that a nuclear weapon
could destroy a hurricane.

-If North Korea's Rocket Man
actually launched

one of his nuclear missiles
at the United States,

a secret evacuation plan
would have kicked into gear.

To get the president
and his shadow government

to the Raven Rock
or Mount Weather Bunkers,

a vast secret transportation
network was created.

You may know it as Marine One,

the helicopter that
takes Trump golfing.

-Everyone sees us land
on the White House lawn.

Shiny green-and-white helicopter

takes the president
back and forth

to help him fulfill his
executive agenda for that day.

-But Marine One
is part of a fleet

of highly specialized aircraft

that have a much
more serious function.

-We've taken those airframes
and we've modernized it,

and we've hardened it
against all kinds of threats.

The real bread and butter

comes from
the communication equipment.

Our president can pick up
that phone inside Marine One

and talk to any world leader,
any combatant commander.

He can go through the Pentagon

and talk to
the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

-And if the president can't get
to one of the secret bunkers,

an entire
secret air force exists

to provide sanctuary
in the skies.

-Right now,
at this exact moment,

there's a plane
sitting on a runway,

its engines are running,
it's fully staffed.

It could be airborne
in less than 15 minutes.

-Officially called
Nightwatch aircraft,

they're known as the president's
doomsday planes.

-They've been modified so much
that the price tag on them

is about 10 times
the normal cost

of a regular commercial 747.

-Manned by a crew of up to 114,

planes at 5,000 square feet
of conference rooms,

communication centers,
and private quarters.

To ensure electronics
aren't fried

by an electromagnetic pulse
from an atomic blast,

the planes are covered
in wire mesh.

-Basically, it's a flying
battle station.

The president can use it
in times of war

to fight back
against any adversary.

-And to order
a retaliatory strike,

the president would turn to the
world's most powerful briefcase.

-In a country that doesn't have
crown jewels or a royal throne,

the physical manifestation
of all of the president's

vast powers is embodied
in the black briefcase

that is never more than a few
steps away from the president.

♪♪

-The so-called
nuclear football briefcase

is the closest thing
to the mythical

and often misunderstood "button"

the president can push
to unleash Armageddon.

-If the United States
were under attack,

the president probably
has 10 minutes,

8 minutes to make a decision
about whether to retaliate

and about what form
of retaliation to order.

Inside, there'd be a black book,

and the black book
has visual representations

of what the different
attack options would be,

maybe like the menu
at restaurants

that show you the pictures
of what you're going to order.

-He would communicate
to the Pentagon, first of all,

who he was, authenticating
himself with an elaborate code,

and then he would communicate
the option he had chosen.

-9, 8, 7, 6...

-From the time that
the president gives an order,

the first missiles
will leave their silos

four minutes later.

♪♪

-And that decision would kill
hundreds of millions of people.

And perhaps put the earth
into a nuclear winter

for a decade or longer,
destroying civilization.

He has to make that decision
in a matter of minutes.

That's almost
an impossible decision

for any human being to make.

-The nuclear football
is based in trust.

It's the idea that the president

has the nation's
best interests at heart,

that the president
is the most logical

and calculating thinker
that you can imagine.

All of that begins to fall apart
if the president himself

is the threat to the nation.

-This wasn't the first time
a seemingly unstable president

pushed the limits
of America's doomsday machine.

-Nixon took the country
and the world

to the brink of nuclear war

for no reason other
than politics.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-October 27, 1969.

Hippies dancing in the street
are oblivious to the fact

that their archenemy,
President Richard Nixon,

has just ordered
18 nuclear-armed B-52 bombers

to take off and head
towards the Soviet Union.

♪♪

-We want Nixon!
We want Nixon!

-Like Trump, Nixon had run
as the law-and-order candidate.

He also claimed to have
a secret plan

to end the Vietnam War.

-For four years, we haven't had
a moment of peace abroad.

For four years, we haven't had
a moment of peace at home.

My friends, when it goes that
far, it's time to make a change.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-But now the country and the war
are spiraling out of control.

And the newly elected president
is desperate.

♪♪

-Nixon decides to start acting

in a completely
unpredictable manner.

He wants not just
the Soviet Union

but the people of Vietnam
to believe that he could unleash

the power of the nuclear bomb
at any moment.

-He began loading up
nuclear weapons on B-52s

and flying them in a way
that suggested

that he was
crazy enough to use them.

President Nixon believed that
he could persuade the Soviets

that he was willing
to use nuclear weapons,

that it might lead to a peaceful
conclusion of the war.

-The challenge with that
was that the other side

might believe that
you would actually start a war.

♪♪

-Any miscalculation
by the Soviets might have easily

tipped the world
into a nuclear exchange.

And if the Soviets had believed
Nixon was crazy enough

to start World War III,

they would have begun to unleash
their vast nuclear arsenal.

♪♪

-Nuclear war is basically like
a shootout in the Old West.

♪♪

Whoever shoots first...

has a better chance of survival.

[ Explosion ]

-With Soviet missiles raining
down across the United States,

the American people would pay
a heavy price

for Nixon
poking the Soviet bear.

-They have the capability
to wipe out New York,

Chicago, Los Angeles.

It would've been a cataclysmic
war for the United States,

and there was no way
that we could prevent that.

♪♪

[ Explosion ]

♪♪

-Scientists, led by Carl Sagan,

determined that a full-scale
nuclear war

using hundreds or thousands
of nuclear weapons

couldn't be fought
without effectively

destroying civilization

and perhaps destroying
humanity as a species.

The survivors
would envy the dead.

-The American people didn't know
just how close

they came to Armageddon
in October 1969.

The Soviets called Nixon's bluff

and didn't cave in
to his provocation.

-It was a tactic
that didn't work.

But the fact that he could
do it at all is unbelievable.

-If the bombs
had started dropping,

Nixon would've turned
to the secret instruction manual

for handling such a massive
national emergency

that would give him the right
to rip up the Constitution

and throw away your rights.

And a version is still
on the books

and available for our current
president to use.

-When somebody's the president
of the United States,

the authority is total.

But I have the right
to do a lot of things

that people
don't even know about.

The president of the
United States calls the shots.

Most Americans don't realize
the secret laws

and secret authorities

that have built up
around the presidency.

-As a result of the Cold War,
the American presidency

has grown in power
exponentially,

in ways that the founders never
could have possibly imagined.

-Then I have an Article II,

where I have the right to do
whatever I want as president,

but I don't even
talk about that.

-I can't think of any president
who has ever claimed

that Article II
of the Constitution

gives him the power
to do whatever he wants.

But even then,
he has the ability

to use secret legal memos
and presidential orders,

known as Presidential
Emergency Action Documents.

-The little-known Presidential
Emergency Action Documents

are top-secret orders
that grant the president vast,

sweeping powers in the case
of a national emergency.

-These Presidential Emergency
Action Documents

are sort of like a loaded weapon

that has never actually
been deployed.

They are executive orders,
proclamations, and directives

that are drafted in anticipation

of a range
of worst-case scenarios,

ready for the president's
signature in the event

that one of those scenarios
were to come to pass.

What's extraordinary

about these Presidential
Emergency Action Documents

is that none of them has ever
been released or even leaked.

These documents are not shared
with Congress,

even though they go to the heart
of the government's plans

for responding
to a major emergency.

-We don't know what
the secret powers are,

we don't know
when they could be invoked,

and we don't know
what American democracy

would look like afterward.

-We have much less information
about the contents of current

Presidential Emergency
Action Documents,

but we do know what was in
some of these

up through the early 1970s.

These purported
to authorize martial law,

the roundup and detention
of people listed

on an index
of so-called subversives

that was maintained by the FBI,
censorship of the press,

warrantless seizures
of property,

and the suspension of
habeas corpus by the president,

not by the Congress,
as provided in the Constitution,

which basically means
that people could be imprisoned

without judicial review.

These documents still exist,

and we know that there
were 56 of them in 2018.

They are periodically
revised and updated

to address current threats.

For example,
a cyber attack, pandemics.

And it's not as if nuclear
warheads have gone away.

We also know that
the purpose of them

is to imagine the outer limits

of how far the president
might possibly need to go

and to prepare
for that scenario.

-With the power of life
and death over the entire planet

and the ability
to kick in secret laws

that could override
the Constitution,

the office of the president
of the United States

has been imbued
with almost godlike powers.

To ensure there's always
someone to wield

these incredible powers,

a vast system of presidential
succession has been created.

-The goal was someone,
somewhere,

was always ready to step
into the presidency.

The president may die.
The presidency always lives.

♪♪

-And having someone ready
is never more important

than on the day all of
the nation's elected officials

gather for the peaceful transfer
of presidential power.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-I, Donald John Trump,
do solemnly swear

-In that void
of 7 hours and 32 minutes,

had catastrophe struck,
I would've become the president.

♪♪

-"I, Donald John Trump,
do solemnly swear..."

-I, Donald John Trump,
do solemnly swear...

-"...that I will
faithfully execute..."

- that I will
faithfully execute...

-"...the office of president
of the United States."

- the office of president
of the United States.

-January 20, 2017.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

Donald J. Trump is sworn in
as the 45th president

after a campaign
that divided the nation.

-So help me God.

-Congratulations.
[ Cheers and applause ]

-If anything happened to the man
elected president,

another man is waiting under
guard, far from the Capitol.

-While the world is watching
in Washington,

Homeland Security Secretary
Jeh Johnson

has been hidden away
at a secure location,

ready to take over if something
terrible happens in Washington.

He's the latest in a long line
of designated survivors,

officials picked in advance

in the presidential line
of succession

to ensure that,
at high-profile events,

there's always one person
ready to step in

if the unthinkable happens.

-Obama's Secretary of
Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson,

was once one of the federal
lawyers who signed off

on the assassination of
Osama bin Laden.

-On January 20, 2017,
I actually had a fantasy

about how that day
was going to go for me.

I was very much looking forward
to leaving office

with the rest
of the Obama administration.

And I actually had
an app on my phone

that counted down
the days, hours, minutes

until January 20, 2017, at noon.

But it didn't happen that way.
At the very last minute,

I was asked to be
the designated survivor.

-The idea
of the designated survivor

is a relatively
recent invention.

The recognition that the speed
and terror of nuclear weapons

in the modern age

requires the ability
to hand off the presidency

in a matter of minutes.

The goal was someone, somewhere,

was always ready
to step into the presidency.

-Thank you.

-There is a fair amount
of thinking that goes into it,

and the designated survivor
would,

in the event all the others

in the presidential line of
succession ahead of him or her,

would assume
the office of the presidency,

-The line of succession
moves down through the cabinet

in the order in which
the cabinet departments

were created,

beginning with
the Secretary of State.

And it goes through all
the federal departments

until it gets to the Secretary
of Homeland Security.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-In that void of
7 hours and 32 minutes,

had catastrophe struck...

-What a great honor
to be able to introduce

for the first time ever,
anywhere, the 45th president

of the United States of America,
Donald J...

- I would've become
the president.

-While the American people

had voted a Republican president
into the office,

if the unthinkable
had happened that day,

the president
of the United States

would've been a Democrat
and a man

who never attempted
to run for president.

But while
the designated survivor

is a publicly known plan

to ensure the survival of the
presidency during major events,

there's another secret plan
that goes even further.

-The Continuity of Government
plans

ensured the line of presidential
succession in a way

that would be unrecognizable
to most Americans.

-The idea was that the scale
of damage could be so great

that everybody
in the constitutional

line of succession
would be gone,

and they would have
to reach way beyond

the constitutional
order of succession.

-In the event of a surprise
catastrophic attack

on Washington,
a host of officials

far from the Capitol
would suddenly raise their hands

and announce themselves
as the country's new leadership.

-People you might have heard of,
like United States attorney

for the district
of Illinois in Chicago,

but you would never imagine
that that person

would be president
of the United States.

But under these plans,
there was an entire government

that was built separate
and apart

from what's contemplated
in the Constitution.

-Whether you come to office

because of the death
of the president

or the resignation
of the president

or election by the people,

you have all of the trappings,
the authority,

and the responsibilities
of the office,

including being
the commander-in-chief

of the armed forces.

-And the president retains
all those trappings,

responsibilities, and authority
even after losing an election.

-In the early hours
of November the 4th,

the man once rated
the most popular

United States president
in history conceded defeat.

-The United States is unusual
in having

a particularly long period

between the election
of one president

and the departure
of another president.

It's about 2 1/2 months.

What that means is, you have
a commander in chief

who may have been rejected
by the American people

but still has the sole authority
to use nuclear weapons,

has tremendous power.

-America might face one of
the most perilous chapters

of its history

as a man who has shown
no respect for democracy

or our democratic institutions
faces a lame-duck period

where he has all of
the authority of the office

and none of the sense
of responsibility.

-Will you pledge tonight that
you will not declare victory

until the election has been
independently certified?

-If I see tens of thousands
of ballots being manipulated,

I can't go along with that.

♪♪

-Donald Trump may end up
losing the election.

But during the so-called
lame-duck period,

a president
of the United States retains

all the vast powers
the office has accumulated

over the last 70 years.

♪♪

-So, there is this period
of three months

during which a president
who has been defeated

or whose second term has expired
or is about to expire,

nonetheless is in charge
of the military.

Let's imagine a scenario

where a president
loses his bid for re-election

and then loses his mind,

in part because of the defeat,
in part

because of some previously
existing mental problem.

He loses control.

If a president rolled out of bed
on a Monday

and wanted to end the world
and called in the code,

there was no war going on,
our hope would be

that the military officers
receiving the go codes

might ask for higher authority
or simply say,

"No, Mr. President,
that is not a legal order."

But technically,
they don't have to.

If the president says go,
they're supposed to go.

-We've seen so many

of the institutions
of the United States buckle

Under President Trump...
The courts, the Senate,

the Justice Department.

Maybe I'm overly hopeful,

but the military seems to be
one of the last institutions

that he hasn't
managed to corrupt.

-It wouldn't be the first time
that a president's ability

to unleash America's nukes
was restrained.

-For over four months, Watergate
has dominated the news media.

It is my
constitutional responsibility

to defend the integrity

of this great office
against false charges.

-As Watergate began to take down
the Nixon presidency,

Richard Nixon began to unravel.

His drinking was out of control.

He was wandering the halls
of the White House,

talking to the portraits
and talking to himself

and talking to God.

He would talk about picking up
a phone and bombing his enemies.

-So Secretary of Defense
James Schlesinger

let it be known
to the Joint Chiefs of Staff

that any order to use
nuclear weapons by Nixon

had to go through him.

Now, technically, if Schlesinger
had overruled Nixon

on the use of nuclear weapons,

it would have been
an act of mutiny.

But he was sufficiently
concerned about Nixon's

mental health that he
wanted to make sure

there wouldn't be a catastrophe.

♪♪

-Who do you protect?!
Who do you protect?!

-But even if nuclear war

can be averted
by clearheaded officials...

-We step back!
Now you step back!

- all lame-duck presidents
have the ability to invoke

the top-secret Presidential
Emergency Action Documents.

-We know that
the Department of Justice

was in the process
of updating these documents

as recently as 2018.

So the question becomes,

what does
the Trump administration view

as the outer limits
of presidential power?

-When somebody's the president
of the United States,

the authority is total.

And that's the way
it's got to be.

- Your authority's total?
- Total.

-That is not true.

Who told you the president
has the total authority?

-Enough?

-Trump has repeatedly hinted
about the secret powers

and the unimaginable
capabilities

that he could have
in an emergency.

The challenge is, we don't
literally know what those are.

-The worst-case scenario
is if this president

were to exploit the actual
emergency presented by COVID-19

and/or to try
to manufacture emergencies,

maybe by provoking violence
in relation

to some of the protests
around police brutality

and to use those situations as
a pretext to deploy the military

or to engage in other extreme
uses of emergency powers

in a way that could undermine

a fair and free election
and undermine our democracy.

-They say that they're
going to threaten riots

if they lose on Election Night.

What are you going to do?

-We'll put them down
very quickly if they do that.

- How you gonna do that?
- We have the right to do that.

We have the power
to do that if we want.

Look, it's called insurrection.

We just send in,
and we do it very easy.

-In that extreme situation,

if all of these powers
were deployed,

what you're looking at

is a democracy
turning into an autocracy.

-We're entering a very perilous
chapter of American history...

-You're disrespecting the flag!

- when you can't trust
that the president

is acting in the nation's
best interests.

[ Explosion ]

-Any attempt to really impose
martial law,

I think, would ultimately fail,

but I could imagine the arrest
of key members of Congress

or leading figures
in the United States

that would profoundly harm
our democratic systems

even more severely
than they are right now.

-Jews will not replace us!

Jews will not replace us!

-By the way, I can't even
[bleep] believe

that we're talking
about these scenarios.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

We're talking about a scenario

of a president
imposing martial law.

The fact that this conversation
is even happening

is a sign of how bad things are
in the United States right now.

-We need to look at how
presidents can be restrained

and how bad-faith actors
can be restrained,

because here
we have a president...

God knows what he could possibly
get into in two months,

particularly being a scorned,
unstable, healthy individual.

-These plans and powers enable
the president to cause

as much chaos
and damage as he wants,

knowing he'll be safe down
in his bunker,

while above him,
the rest of us are left to die.

Since the beginning of
the Nuclear Age in 1945,

decisions of incredibly
profound importance

have been made by a small number
of policy makers

in Washington, D.C.,
mainly in secret.

And it's really important
that the American people

understand these issues,

educate themselves
about these issues,

and be part of the process
of debating them

and making the decisions,

because the consequences
of these decisions

are almost unimaginable.

♪♪

-2020 is the beginning
of the age of catastrophe.

It's kind of the future
warning us.

-All we want is justice!
We can't get justice?!

-There's so much uncertainty,
discontent, fear.

[ Explosion ]

-The apocalypse is sort of
closing in on us from all sides.

-It turns out none of the plans
that we had developed

during the Cold War would work.

-Everybody out!

-Because you can lock on to him,
shoot him, shoot him, shoot him.

-We've seen it with earthquakes,
hurricanes, and now a pandemic

just how wide the chasm is
between the powerful

and the rest of us.

-It is fascinating
how this disaster

seemed to disproportionately
affect poor black people.

-I think if we had a major
catastrophic event,

you could see America
would do well

in the first 7 to 10 days.

-End the shutdown now!

-Then you're going to
immediately fall into chaos.

[ Glass shatters ]

-Back up!
Back up!

-The world is kind of on fire.

And the elites
are retreating into bunkers.

♪♪