Chatter: Gaming Out an Insurrection with Jesse Moss

It’s January 6, 2025. Congress has convened to certify electoral votes in the presidential election. But members of the U.S. military are in revolt, throwing their support behind the losing candidate. The legitimate president huddles in the Situation Room with his top advisers and Cabinet. They have six hours to prevent violent protests from exploding into civil war. 

That’s the dire scenario imagined in the new documentary “War Game.” Real-world experts--including former elected officials and retired military officers--play the roles of government decision-makers. Over the course of the game, they are surprised with new and increasingly perilous complications, from the spread of online propaganda to a renegade general who exhorts military service members to take up arms against their commander-in-chief. All the while, they grapple with whether the president should invoke the Insurrection Act, a fateful decision that risks undermining the government’s legitimacy at the very moment the president is trying to preserve it. 

Shane Harris spoke with the film’s producer and co-director, Jesse Moss, about what inspired him to make this real-life thriller and what it tells us about the state of the union as we head into the home stretch of an election. 

Articles, organizations, and television shows discussed in this episode include: 

• The Washington Post op-ed that inspired the war game: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/17/eaton-taguba-anderson-generals-military/ 
• Vet Voice Foundation: https://vvfnd.org/campaigns/war-game-film/ 
• Trailer for the film: https://wargamefilm.com/ 
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• “The Bureau”: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4063800/ 
• More about Moss and his work: https://www.jessemoss.com/Jesse-Moss-1