♪♪ well, this is it. this is where it all happened. imagine that, my garage door made history. this is where the big press conference took place. i don't even know how to explain 2020.

♪♪ it was a crazy, crazy year. ♪♪ >> bad things happened in philadelphia. bad things. >> former vice president joe biden becomes the 46th president of the united states. >> i had no idea what we would be in for. >> i thought it was a fake. i thought my friends were messing with me. >> a philadelphia landscaping company has been thrust into the national spotlight. >> the entire thing was supposed to be anonymous. >> just put me in shock to see my name on the president's twitter. we probably got thousands of calls. >> you have 950 new messages. >> we have a lot of haters. >> i remember asking, did we make a mistake? there were just way too many trees. here's the other thing, and i think we'll discuss this with

the board. when we have the zoom. my name's marie siravo. i'm 65, and i'm the president of four seasons total landscaping in northeast philadelphia. >> we do irrigation, seeding, flowers, snow removal. it's kind of boring. i think the most challenging part of starting the business and being in business was being woman-owned. nobody took you serious. you're on the property. you have cameras. >> yeah. >> our maintenance men on other properties, they connect with us. we help them. they help us. if i had a dollar for every time i got asked, did i have a husband, very a wonderful husband. he just had his business and i had mine. this is my life.

other than my family, this is my entire life. we want to make sure that if we do purchase this it's meeting our needs and that we don't now also need another building. i have three boys. michael's the youngest. mike took on the general manager role. i had to let go a little bit because i want my hands in everything. >> how many people get the chance to go to work every day with their mother? >> the first thing we do is fix everything with food. this is part of our italian culture. >> some days are like phenomenal and then some days she can't figure out how to use the printer, and it's frustrating. >> mike, i need some help. we have some days where our horns lock, and he forgets i'm still his boss, but i try not to use that card because i need him to learn everything that's in my head.

>> i started from the very bottom, being a laborer and working underneath the supervisor. shadowing him. so i pretty much worked from the ground up to where i am now. get? get it? ground up. other than that, like, that's not scheduled work so like -- >> basically mike and shawn run the daily operations. >> i really do depend on mike. we're partners with his mother in this business. >> shawn and i met when we were m college, and he was an upper classman. i looked up to him. he was almost like a big brother to me. >> mike and i have been through a lot together, both personally and professionally. we're both in recovery, which is a big thing in common. >> if you can do it with somebody else that has the same goals as you do, to be a better person it makes it easier. >> they're like two old souls. they work together so well. i know they both have the company's best interest at heart. sometimes it takes a little, you

know, i just got to let him be him and back off, and he comes around. so, is this what people want to hear about in this documentary? >> the race to the white house has now been called for pennsylvania. >> a confusing pennsylvania is going to be. >> president trump is still leading in that state by about 108,000 votes. >> there wasn't a clear winner. it left everyone worried and stressed. >> philadelphia became ground zero. in the center was where the votes were being counted. crowds started gathering outside. you had trump supporters gathering outside. biden supporters facing off against each other. across the street. >> people were dressing up as the constitution, mailboxes, holding signs saying we the people. progressives, conservative americans, in one place, in the streets outside the philly convention center. they turn up. pam goes to address the crowd,

and the count every votes protest which is right across the street turned up the music really, really loud. so you cannot hear a word that pam says because it's completely overwhelmed by the sounds of beyonce. >> every tweet and instagram you saw, people were arguing and it just was very uneasy. and then the phone call. >> my phone rang around 8:45 a.m. i was in a men's bible study in doylestown, pennsylvania. >> hello. >> so i didn't answer. then my phone immediately rang again. so i excused myself and walked outside. and it was a trump staffer. they were asking if we would be amenable to them having a press conference at four seasons total landscaping.

i just thought, why not? >> by about 9:45, the deal was sealed. it's just insane. out of all places, it's here. >> we're a landscaping company. we're experts in ground maintenance, irrigation, seeding, planting, not press conferences. conferences.

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fatal heat wave. fire, drought. wave. fire, drought. i have dreamt at performing in redshore city since i was a little kid. here she is the star of our show. [ gasps ] there's nothing rosita can't do.

i can't do this. she's afraid. can i try? no, no, no, porsha wait! ♪ this girl is on fire ♪ this is probably for the best. but i wrote this part for you. time to show the world what you're really made of. ♪ she's walking on fire ♪ suddenly, this tweet comes through from donald trump. lawyers press conference at four seasons, philadelphia, 11:00 a.m. >> i jump in my car and go down to the four seasons hotel in downtown philadelphia. >> i think i was at the door when the second tweet came through. four seasons landscaping, philadelphia. i think my initial reaction was one of utter confusion. >> it's like, of course it's there, there's landscaping there. oh, yeah, it's the four seasons

hotel, the entrance area with the landscaping. >> my assumption was that he mushed the keyboard and it was the hotel. >> i got a call from the four seasons hotel. he said, i have one question. are they coming to you or coming are they coming to me? >> a third tweet comes in, and it says big press conference this philadelphia, four seasons total landscaping. why would the president's lawyers hold a press conference at a landscaping company? >> this story starts with president trump tweeting that there would be a press conference at the four seasons landscaping. not the hotel but four seasons total landscaping. it remains unclear whether the trump campaign booked the whole area in error or not. >> why would you book this place? it was a head scratcher. this is just the beginning of how surreal this event was. it's not prominent. why is it here? you had more questions than

you could possibly have answered. >> with trump, it was always difficult to get answers about the truth. sometimes it was because people didn't know the answers. often it was because they were lying. i spent weeks and weeks interviewing everybody i could and hitting dead end after dead end after dead end. nobody really knew how they ended up at a landscaping place in a part of town that, you know, normally is not where campaigns host these things. i set out to try and answer what i thought was a simple question. what the hell had happened? and the longer i dug into it the crazier and crazier it was. >> mistake or not, they held their press conference at the loading dock of the landscaper. here's what it looks like. that's quite an image. projects power. >> obviously, they screwed up. they called the wrong place and thought, well, let's just go with it.

>> we at an industrial strip with an adult video and bookstore up the street. >> there was a level of excitement among our staff that we would be hosting the president's campaign staff here. but that was quickly followed by dread. >> an obvious screw-up in booking, but they all played along, pretended that was the master plan. >> there are two different theories, really, that i had and other people had, as well. one, i thought that maybe they had, someone thought that they could book the four seasons hotel. someone on the campaign made the president think that it was a possibility that it would be held there and that once he tweeted that they googled around and found that the closest thing called four seasons to the four seasons philadelphia happened to be this landscaping place. the other theory was this perfect storm of minor screw-ups from various people at various levels of the campaign and

somehow maybe through a connection or accident they ended up here. >> i met the campaign staff here at about 9:30. it was a pretty quick setup, obviously, you saw what was on tv. i'm pretty proud of the space that we were able to curate in such a small amount of time. i mean, it was a landscape construction yard. >> normally, you might have police outside on the perimeter, but it was just private security. and they asked us to put our news organizations down on a clipboard, and then they would call us in. and they made us look like it might be exclusive, like we might not all get called in. every time they called a news organization, the six to eight trump supporters would boo. >> we'd request that the republican -- >> boo! >> the media is whores. >> the biggest part for me is

giuliani pulling up in two black suburban, it was almost like slow motion, like him walking into the office. >> i actually wasn't going to come here. and i got a phone call from my son anthony, and he said, mom, this is bigger than we think. and he sends me a picture while i'm talking to him. and rudy's sitting at my desk and the plaque in front of my desk says "boss lady." i told my husband, we got to get over there. >> we demand a fair election. >> i demand you shut the hell up! >> we demand a fair election! we demand a fair election! >> there was a crowd of people, both biden and trump supporters were there. they were going back and forth with each other. and then the cops showed up. and the entire front road was shut down. that's when it kind of got very

nerve-racking for me. >> it was just overwhelming, so i just looked around. i looked at everybody. i tried to figure out who everybody was. the press conference was about to start. i stood on top of a trailer so i could see, and i just watched. >> in the final weeks of the trump campaign, officials told me that keeping rudy busy became a full-time job. they had to devise places to send him so he wasn't running wild, creating whack a mole problems for them. >> rudy giuliani is undermining the confidence in the american election system and therefore undermining our national security. >> rudy giuliani was considered to be a great force of law and order. he was one of the heroes of 9/11. >> and i think that's part of why it was so disturbing to watch him unravel and to watch him debase himself in support of this guy who they thought that he was better than.

>> by the way, do you have any idea that the state department -- shut up, shut up. you don't know what you're talking about. >> chris, chris, chris. >> you don't know what you're talking about, idot. >> he was kind of a mess, but he was always around, and he was only loyal, and that was the only thing that seemed to matter to the president. >> he's a great guy. he knows it's a witch hunt. >> we followed his press conference very closely, and he was very aware of what the view of him was in mainstream circles. >> he was nothing but respectful to us here, shook hands, took pictures with us, greeted all the cops. but, you know, i think going on tv, i don't know if something changes. >> he once told me my view of my legacy is quote, fuck it. >> thank you for coming. i'm here on behalf of the trump campaign as an attorney for the president to describe to you the

first part of a situation that is extremely, extremely troubling. >> so rudy giuliani comes out and launches into this speech about how the election was stolen and how there are very grave allegations of fraud. he has witnesses behind him. >> people who have seen alleged fraud, people who will be testifying in lawsuits. he presents this guy, daryl brooks, later learned that he's exposed himself to children underage. >> it became clear really quickly there was nothing really there. he wasn't exposing some big fraud that took place in philadelphia. the election wasn't stolen. >> while rudy was speaking, i was off to the side with mike and marie. we looked at each other and were in awe of how long this was going on. >> i know you won't accept it because of your hateful biases.

but let's see if you can think rationally. some ballots have been manufactured by the philadelphia machine. >> i didn't think anybody took this real serious. >> how can i possibly tell you there's fraud or no fraud? >> and somebody says, yells out, do you know they've called the election for biden? >> who was it called by? oh, my goodness, all the networks. wow. all the networks. >> all the networks. when have the networks decided the election? something to that effect, and we're all thinking, all the time. networks call the elections all the time. >> you can see this ripple among the crowd of journalists as they try to figure out what to do. and i'm kind of standing there thinking the same thing, do i

need to stay here listening to rudy giuliani or go back to philadelphia where people are going to be celebrating the election. and then you see people start to pack up their stuff. >> many of them had to leave because the primary story wasn't that rudy giuliani was challenging the election results. the story was that biden had just won the presidency. if somebody asks me, where were you when they called the election for joe biden, i'd say, well, i was in the parking lot of four seasons total landscaping. >> thank you. >> the president's lawyer left as the news came in that joe biden had been declared the victor. perhaps this is why they chose the industrial estate. they wouldn't be heard or welcomed here in downtown philadelphia. a city in a state which delivered donald trump the white house four years ago, pennsylvania is now the state which pushed joe biden over the line.

>> i just thought, sure, we said yeah, and it was going to be over. period. >> we would have done this for either political campaign. we just wanted to be helpful. >> and we just had no idea what we were in for. >> did you see my press conference today? it was at the four seasons, fancy. >> yeah, sounds fancy, but it was at a landscaping company called four seasons. was that a mistake? >> what? no! >> we heard from all different types of media outlets and people wanting to know more about what happened. >> i got calls from "the washington post." >> "chicago times." >> the "new york times." >> "usa today." >> yahoo news. >> hulu. >> abc. >> nbc. >> fox. >> cnn. >> the bbc. i kept seeing that this was going further and into europe. >> german newspapers, irish newspapers, you name it, they were all calling. >> my e-mails have not stopped. are you getting emails?

>> non-stop. >> are you? >> it's insane. >> otherwise if i thought it was turning into this i would have thought twice. >> on the day after the press conference, it was nothing but chaos. we couldn't even use the office phone for two weeks because it just never stopped ringing. >> you couldn't even get a thought processed, let alone answer them. >> you have 1,010 new messages of which 3 are urgent. >> i understood that there is a special on bullshit this week. >> message two. >> do you provide services like dismantling our democracy? >> deleted. >> deleted. >> you're fucking traitor. >> message 39.

>> the things they're saying about us is like amazing. i can't even believe this. okay, guys. wait until you hear this one. there's a big conspiracy theory. we're burning ballots across the street at the crematory. people's minds, they're just delusional. >> that was one of the hardest parts for me. i never had to deal with that level of hate. i'm talking hundreds and hundreds of emails. i just got basically saying go "f" yourself, going to burn down your building. it created a lot of fear of what the future holds for four seasons total landscaping. >> it's frightening because 28 years could go down the tubes. i remember asking my husband joe, are we going to survive this? are we going to get out of this in one piece? people don't get it that being this business is not a picnic. i remember them coming to take my car in the middle of the night. bringing a generator home

because they shut my electric off because i couldn't cash my checks. i had a tough time borrowing money when i bought this building. i had to put my house up for the bank to get the mortgage. >> did i want to see something she built disappear? or was i going to keep the legacy going? >> trying to operate a business through all of this, i don't even know what word to use to describe this. >> people were taunting us. laughing at us. mocking us. and we needed to figure out a way to let them all know that we were in on the joke and that we were laughing, too. >> oh, oh, the networks. >> when you surround yourself with good people, good things happen. i think it started to turn when michael and sean started to run with this on instagram and facebook. they made a joke out of everything.

because it was funny to us after. they picked us. they picked our place. >> if this whole thing blew up i would recover from it. i would go and work somewhere else. but a family business 28 years in the making might not recover. and i felt responsible because these people are my family. >> understanding the joke and being in on it, it was almost like a waterfall of memes you could make. >> we got put into a corner and we used our humor to get us out of it. >> we were making thousands of people laugh not only over the entire nation butt world. it went from being majority negative and getting hate to then be total opposite overnight. >> they ended up doing this in a rinky dink parking lot, no offense to the landscaping company. the real winner though wasn't the campaign that got to use it for free but it was the total

landscaping company which has really come out of this on top, just owning social media over the last month. >> like entrepreneurs, we wanted to capitalize on this international attention and sell t-shirts. we want from being a landscaper to selling merchandise. we just started filling orders day and night. >> we'd done approximately $1.5 million in sales revenue. that's a lot of t-shirts. we've been getting a lot of fan mail. people have been sending us christmas cards with our zoom background on them. >> can you believe somebody made this? they made us our own lego set. there was a diorama of our company in berlin. that amazed me. who would want this? >> somebody made a virtual reality four seasons. >> we had people showing up on our doorstep, knocking, asking for t-shirts. we even had one employee that was leaving, and someone offered them $50 for the stained, sweaty t-shirt off their back. we had hundreds of visitors coming in the first couple days following our social media revamp.

>> suddenly, we had fans. it was surreal. >> would you look at all these people out here? it's like every day. this is insane. people have referred to us as a philly landmark. we've had so many families out front. >> we even had two sisters. one lived in bethlehem, pennsylvania. the other in new york city. they met here with a blanket and picnic basket and had their thanksgiving dinner together here. i really think that the four seasons hotel thing was a blessing for us. if our name had been marie's landscaping, none of this would have happened. >> well, the team at four seasons total landscaping appears to have taken this in stride. go online now and can you buy a range of make america rake again and lawn and order merchandise. >> i reached out to the four seasons hotel. my reporting concluded that nobody from the trump campaign or any campaign had reached out to the four seasons hotel about

hosting any kind of event. >> i love the narrative that it was a mistake and that they meant to book the four seasons hotel. >> there was no mistake. this is exactly where the press conference was supposed to be. >> they had surveyed some areas along the i-95 corridor, and our site was one of the ones that they determined would be secure with quick access on and off the highway. >> and it was free. that's another important thing. the trump campaign blew through $1.1 billion. they were near broke before the presidential election. they didn't have any money, and that's why it couldn't have been at the four seasons hotel. they would have charged them. >> that's why it was at four seasons total landscaping, there's your inside track. because they didn't want to do it anywhere else. >> this has given me something that i can't explain to you. it's worth more than money. it wasn't about money at all.

this was about our story. >> it's an american underdog story. i think we were able to turn something that appeared to be disastrous for a small business into something positive. >> before the press conference, four seasons total landscaping was struggling. almost like living paycheck to paycheck. going from being just a local city landscaping company to now being globally recognized. it's amazing. but we're just honored being able to give back, helping the next person out. we did a toy drive this christmas with toys for tots. we went and delivered to kids in the hospital. >> thank you so much. i really appreciate it. >> for them to get that joy, that was the best part for me. you know? i'm very proud of myself for that. >> when we get on the zoom, i want you to take over this.

>> yeah, i got you. >> we're end of the line for me and my career. but i know when i hand those keys over to michael, he's got it. he's proved himself. michael has shown every day how much he's grown as an individual, as a father, as a husband, as a son. >> she's a phenomenal mother. she's always there to support me. it's like always having somebody with their hand on your back pushing you to greatness. >> for him to step into my shoes and take over my role, i have so much faith in him. i know he can do anything. >> my distinguished guests, my fellow americans, this is america's day! this is democracy's day.

a day of history and hope. of renewal and resolve. through a crucible for the ages, america's been tested anew, and america has risen to the challenge. >> the most amazing thing in my life has happened. i'm in a super bowl commercial. >> looks good, guys. success. right place, right time. fiber gets that. from graphic design to web development. we're even a pr expert for things like, i don't know, booking a press conference. fiber has the freelancers to get you where you want to be. >> is this a lobby? >> this is not a hotel. we have a big show coming up for you. marie and michael of four seasons total landscaping are here to tell us what life has been like since that infamous day.

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we're a landscaping company. we're experts in ground maintenance, irrigation, seeding, planting, not press conferences. >> why would the president's lawyers hold a press conference at a landscaping company? >> it was a pretty quick setup. obviously, you saw what was on tv. it was a landscape construction yard. >> wow. what a day. thank you. >> we had no idea what we were in for. >> we demand a fair election. >> oh, my goodness, all the networks. >> i remember asking did we make a mistake? >> we had a lot of haters. >> you have 1,010 new messages.

it created a lot of fear of what the future held for four seasons total landscaping. >> we got put into a corner, and we used our humor to get us out of it. >> oh, all, the networks. >> they made a joke out of everything because it was funny to us. >> it's an american underdog story. >> on the morning of november 7, 2020, then president donald trump sent out a series of tweets announcing that his campaign would be holding a press conference at the four seasons in philadelphia, not the four seasons hotel, but four seasons total landscaping, the family-owned business located in north philadelphia in the industrial park just off of i-95. it became host to one of the most surreal moments of the 2020 election and the subject of the four seasons total documentary. the director of that documentary, christopher stout, the owner, marie siravo and her son and director of operations michael join me now. it was an absolutely incredible documentary. i cried. i laughed.

i felt sorry for you, and i'm so happy to have the opportunity to talk to you. marie, i wanted to start with you and just see how has this journey been for you? how is the business and family doing now? >> everybody's doing great, and i'll be honest with you. this was the ride of a lifetime. i'm at the end of my career, and i, i'm happy that i made the decision i made when we were in, you know, when we were initially called to, you know, to hold the press conference here. and i never could have imagined that it would have turned out like this, but it has been such a year for us because we've had one thing after another has happened. people have, they've embraced us around the country and around the world. messages we've gotten. i couldn't be happier. and then to, you know, to get to

a year and have a documentary is, it's just amazing for us. we're thrilled. >> chris, let's talk about that documentary for a moment. how did you decide on doing a documentary about this? how did you connect with the family? and how did you manage to get through to them with all of the thousands of phone calls and messages that they were receiving on any given day? >> well, obviously, the whole world wanted to know the mystery, you know, why did the president's lawyer hold a press conference at a landscaping company. so clearly, this was the big question, the million dollar question that needed to be solved, and yes, outlets from all over the world were reaching out to them. and i had somewhat of an inside track. a friend of mine was brothers with sean middleton, so i was able to get on the phone with them before anyone else did. and when we got on the phone together i got the sense that

every outlet wanted to know, you know, why did this happen? why was the press conference held there? and for me i was more interested in getting to know them as people and seeing how their experience has been, just having their world turned upside down. i mean, they were such fish out of water, and for me, the conflict called to me as a film maker, what the hell happened. >> michael, i wanted to play for you this clip from the documentary just after the press conference with rudy giuliani. watch this moment. >> that was one of the hardest parts for me. i never had to deal with that level of hate. i'm talking hundreds and hundreds of emails. i just got basically saying to go "f" yourself, going to burn down your building. it created a lot of fear of what the future holds for four seasons total landscaping. >> so the future has played out a little bit. are you still getting messages like that? how do you handle the messages

if at all that you're receiving now? >> complete opposite messages. they're filled with like love and appreciation for the way we spun this and making it almost comedic. basic, you know, if anybody stops through here we hand them stickers, t-shirts, whatever we can, because it's crazy for us that there's fans. it's still hard for me to grasp, but i always tell people. if you're in the area, stop through, we'll take pictures, we'll do what we can if we have time. yeah, i love it. >> christopher, you had such an intimate insight into making this documentary. what surprised you the most while making this film? >> the outpouring of love that

four seasons received after the press conference. i mean, they sold $1.5 million worth of t-shirts. i mean, that's just incredible. you can actually still buy those t-shirts now. people were making christmas cards featuring the garage doors, the zoom background, the two sisters that came to four seasons to have their thanksgiving there. clearly this moment resonated with people. and it created such an outpouring of love. and suddenly, four seasons total landscaping sort of meant something to people. and it became this meme that people could actually share with together and it kind of created this online community. >> i'm going to go out on a limb and say there's probably going to be some wedding proposal there at some point. let me ask you really quickly, marie. let me ask you, though, because it's become such an icon being location. has any other political party or campaign reached out to you to hold a political event there?

and if so, what would you say? political campaign has approached us, but we would have said yes because you know, knowing where it got us here and all the excitement that we've had, we'd do it again. we would do it again. the outpouring and the embracing that we've had, the way people have treated us, the end result was just, it may not have been business enhancing, the treatment we got and truthfully everywhere we go somebody knows us. it's exciting. it's really exciting. you work your whole life and what a way to go out. i'm at the end of my career, and this is just amazing to me that people stop me and say, you look like the girl, the lady from four seasons. i am the lady from four seasons, and it's just funny. it's just, you know, it's amazing. >> michael, i know the future of

this company is so important to you and your family. we heard christopher talk about how you turned this situation into a positive one with the merchandise. have you given any thought about the future of the company and what you plan to do about expanding beyond doing landscaping and now the merchandise, perhaps even become an event space one day? >> yeah, i think the main goal for me is to obviously create more jobs. keep growing to the next level. that was always my plan from prior to this excitement and the conference. our niche is landscaping. it probably always will be. i'll do the same thing that i did the first time around. it's just take one day at a time. one week at a time and just kind of go from there. if something gets put in our opportunity to do something, yeah, i don't see why not. >> well, we're going to be rooting for you for whatever you guys decide to do in the future. christopher stout and michael

and marie sivano, thank you. up next, how the narrative pushed by rudy giuliani became a defining belief among republican voters. the growth of the big lie, coming up next.

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releasing aspirin after it leaves your stomach... where it is absorbed to give you the benefits of life saving aspirin... to help prevent another heart attack or stroke. heart protection with your stomach in mind. try new liquid-filled vazalore. aspirin made amazing! >> this is a gross miscarriage of the process that would assure she is ballots are not fraudulent. it is a fraud. an absolute fraud >> i think that it is a corrupt, stolen election. >> i've never seen this amount of voter irregularity. >> the election is being stolen. the evidence is overwhelming. >> i'm not sure that every vote was counted, not in the right way. >> they say i lost. i didn't lose. the election was rigged. >> how does anybody trust the election results? >> so the election lies pushed by the trump campaign at four seasons total landscaping in november of 2020 have only kept

growing ever since. and joining me here to talk about that, one of the producers on four seasons total documentary, the washington correspondent for new york magazine along with msnbc's political analyst kimberly atkins, columnist for the boston globe. great to have you with us. let's start with that moment there. when you look at that time that rudy guiliani was standing there, peddling the allegations of voter fraud and that the election was stolen just as the networks were calling the election for joe biden. it almost seems come cal and you want to laugh at what you were seeing there but given how this has now resonated among republicans, what does that moment in time mean for where we are as a country? >> one way you could look at it as a, i wouldn't say a break with reality when people talk about, they would talk about the wheels being off the trump white house i would always say like there were wheels? and so four seasons was not a breaking point because things

had been insane. the election had been all about conspiracies for a long time. the administration had been about conspiracies. donald trump's entire political career was about conspiracies. but it was this kind of formal moment where they officially made conspiracies and insanity their strategy going forward. and what followed that was the insurrection. so even though this was this hilariously weird historic event at this landscaping company by mistake or poor planning, it still, there is a kind of grimness to the whole thing knowing what came after. >> so, kimberly, to that point when you look at where the polling is today on this, you know, some polls suggest as much as 68% of republicans believe the election was stolen.

they believe the big lie. it's even higher for people who use fox news as their main source of information or who trust it. i think it is like in the low 80s. how do you begin to even counter the big lie when you have that many people buying into it? >> it's difficult. and to be sure, this was amplified by donald trump and his campaign, but it goes back so much further. we have to remember that this -- the idea of the big lie and why it was able to take hold is because decades, lawmakers, particularly republicans, have used this, this idea of protecting against fraud. fraud that's never existed, that's never been proven, in order to make voting more difficult. to pass laws with everything but from stripping voters' names from polls, from requiring i.d. requirements where we know that it's more difficult for black people, brown people, poor people to get them and may tend to vote democratic. that's been happening for a long time. you have the stripping of the voting rights act where it

happened even more. it was sort of that was the kindling where donald trump's big lies was able to set afire. and really lead to this. so it's a slow build up. and that's why it's so much harder to fight back against now. >> in the months leading up to this fateful day at four seasons total landscaping the trump campaign was, trump is sort of throwing out different reasons why he would eventually lose. once it became clear to him, i remember talking to advisers in the white house on the campaign, once he started to accept it was a possibility which took a really long time given what the polls said and how things were going in the country and with the coronavirus, he started to kind of amp things up with spit balling about things that were going wrong, who was taking the election from him, the fact that fraud was forthcoming basically to give himself an excuse in the event he did lose. >> you talk about conspiracy

theories. there was one moment in the documentary very foreshadowing. let me play it. it is when marie starts receiving phone calls and messages and one was a conspiracy theory. >> the things they're saying about us is like amazing. i can't even believe this. okay, guys. wait till you hear this one. there's a big conspiracy theory. we're burning ballots across the street at the crematory. >> that seems like a hashinger of the conspiracy theories we're inundated with around this election because of moments like that. >> absolutely. when there's no uniform source of information, information sources are diversified, and when so much misinformation is being fueled into this election and the past several elections that's exactly what happens. people believe what they want to believe. they believe even far fetched things as long as it confirms their own biasses. that is where you see that sort of thing run wild and we're

still seeing that today. people are sort of dug in to their corners and believing whatever supports their side. >> kimberly atkins, olivia nuzzi thank you so much. thank you at home for watching. we're keeping the conversation going online using the #fourseasonstotal. please join in. good night. don't pay for water. pay for clean. it's got to be tide. if you're 55 and up, t- mobile has plans built just for you. whether you need a single line or lines for family members, you'll get great value on america's most reliable 5g network. like 2 lines of unlimited for just $27.50 a line. only at t-mobile. people with moderate to severe psoriasis, or psoriatic arthritis, are rethinking the choices they make like the splash they create the way they exaggerate the surprises they initiate. otezla. it's a choice you can make. otezla is not an injection or a cream

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