With several Proud Boys leaders convicted of seditious conspiracy, and longtime leader Enrique Tarrio sentenced to 22 years in prison, the far-right group is spiraling into chaos and its members are at each others' throats.
That's the assessment of CNN correspondent Elle Reeve, who previously covered the 2017 Unite the Right violence in Charlottesville and focuses on these groups in her reporting.
"What is the current state of the Proud Boys, now that their former leader and other top members are facing serious jail time?" asked anchor Jake Tapper.
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"So there's no more big national rallies," said Reeve. "Instead you mostly see small groups protesting drag queens. It's a big shift from fighting Antifa and looks kind of like a bid to stay relevant. And there's also a lot of infighting over whether or not to allow in white nationalist members. So one Proud Boy called me in great distress, because he discovered members of his group had white supremacist tattoos. But the bigger cultural picture is that Proud Boys pitch themselves as a fun drinking club where everything was just a joke, and these sentences are not a joke, and that really kills the appeal."
"If Trump were facing seditious conspiracy charges, do you think that would deter these far-right groups, or people who follow Trump, from repeating the January 6th kind of insurrection?" said Tapper. "Do you think it matters?"
"I think it really matters in the opposite way," said Reeve. "Because before January 6th, a lot of these far-right groups thought Trump had their back. And among those I've interviewed, that evaporated, because he did not pardon the Jan 6 rioters. So they say anyone who shows up in protest for him now is a sucker. You saw this in court with one of the Proud Boys saying he was done peddling lies for other people who don't care about me."
Watch the video below or at the link.
Elle Reeve says Proud Boys are in disarrayyoutu.be
