Trump documentary filmmaker admits he was 'very soft' on ex-president and 'didn't push' him to give answers
The documentary that is set to air on Discovery+ on Tuesday doesn't push Donald Trump when it comes to his lies, the filmmaker admitted. In an interview with TIME magazine, Alex Holder confessed that he was "very soft" on the notoriously angry ex-president.
The film has earned attention because it is among the exhibits for the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6 attack and the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. The filmmakers were in the White House on the day of the attack and spoke with Trump and his family in the aftermath.
Holder filmed Trump "fuming" over Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, calling them cowards.
“They’re not even running the state,” Trump said, according to Holder. “The state’s being run by Stacey Abrams.”
He told TIME that when the interview was finished, "there was a very awkward silence. A very uncomfortable atmosphere. There was a feeling of people being scared."
He didn't go into detail about who was in the room while they were filming or if those there were silent because they understood what Trump was saying.
“Those interviews are obviously very important for the chronology and for what was going on in people’s minds at those specific times,” Holder told TIME.
Holder previously co-produced a documentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, speaking to Orthodox Jew Jason Greenblatt, who worked with Jared Kushner in his attempt to establish Middle East Peace by the end of the Trump administration. Kushner was the one who approved Holder, out of hundreds of people asking, to do the documentary.
“We discussed this crazy idea of making a documentary about the Trump family and obviously President Trump himself,” Holder recalled speaking to Greenblatt. Greenblatt was the one who suggested it to Kushner.
“They’d been complaining so much about how the media is misrepresenting them. And no one really knows who they are,” Holder explained. “They had a really cynical view of the media. So I said that I just wanted them to tell me who they were.”
Perhaps that is the reason that Holder was so resistant to push back on Trump's assertions. He explained that he intentionally tried not to be confrontational.
“My approach was being really open and transparent and very soft,” he told TIME. “I didn’t push. I sort of took what I could get from them....There were no tricks in this. I’m very straightforward.”
He thinks that "hubris" was the main reason that the Trump team cooperated.
"Because here’s a guy who doesn’t really have any skin in the game. He’s not American, and he’s there to film us win the election. So why not indulge? That’s sort of how it all kind of came about," said Holder.
However, once the election drew closer, he began to suspect something "ominous" was about to happen.
On Jan. 5, the film crew was at the White House when he told his cinematographer, "He’s going to tell them to barge the Capitol tomorrow."
It's exactly what happened, however, Holder didn't go on to explain how he knew specifically Trump would say that.
After the Jan. 6 attack, Pence reached out and wanted to do his own interview with the film crew. "But they made it really clear that they didn’t want to talk about the events of Jan. 6."
One of the things Holder said he saw when they were about to begin the interview was that a Pence aide showed the vice president a letter from Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking for him to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office. Pence said to CNN he was actually looking at the letter he was sending back to Pelosi saying he wouldn't do that.
Holder also recalled handing an iPad to Trump to show him clips of Don Jr. and Ivanka on the campaign trail speaking out for him.
“They have a great political base, but it’s my base,” Trump told him, according to Holder.
“Which is fascinating, right?” Holder said. “Like a father trying to take away from his kids’ accomplishments and saying they actually come from him.”
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