Andrew Callaghan has interviewed his fair share of conspiracy theorists, QAnon supporters and anti-mask protesters around the country for his Channel 5 YouTube videos, but he filmed the “hardest” sit-down of his life while making his HBO documentary “This Place Rules.”
While driving across the U.S. in the months leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Callaghan talked to far-right radio show host Alex Jones, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, anonymous Antifa members and hundreds of 2020 election protesters. But it was one elderly QAnon and Trump supporter named Dave, known online as “Inglorious Patriot,” who made Callaghan nervous. After interviewing Dave in his RV and hearing about his far-out conspiracy theories about QAnon, pedophiles and the Clintons, Callaghan confronts him later in “This Place Rules” with legal paperwork revealing that Dave is a registered sex offender.
“That was a crazy shot because he had a gun on his waist while we were interviewing him, and he was getting pissed off,” Callaghan said on Variety’s Doc Dreams, presented by National Geographic. “So I was definitely a little bit fearful for my life at that particular interview at a Culver’s in North Carolina on the side of the highway. I just got to a point with the movie where I was like, ‘I’ve got to show that some of these people were just projecting.’ The fact that Dave was a convicted pedophile and makes videos exposing deep-state cabals of pedophiles was a fascinating thing to me…It’s classic projection. But that was the hardest scene I’ve ever filmed in my life.”
Callaghan also reveals how he got in touch with Jones, the controversial host of Infowars, and how the two of them ended up lifting weights while shirtless and taking whiskey shots. As for the upcoming 2024 presidential election, in which Donald Trump has already said he’s going to run again, Callaghan is prepared to document whatever unfolds.
“I think the culture war that’s being propagated by mainstream media is back in full swing, so I’m sure they’re going to ramp people up for another civil domestic conflict,” he said. “The winter of 2024, I’m going to be on the front lines for sure. Next election sounds great.”
