On today’s Story Beat:

Richie McGinniss: January 6th, I was up in the inauguration tower filming the breaking of the police line. I’m not gonna trust the feds or the protestors/rioters to tell me what happened. And so I saw them streaming into the building and I had a moment where I was like, well, I guess I gotta go in there because that’s what I’ve been doing this whole time.

And I ended up on the other side of the House doors where the Sergeant at Arms had their guns drawn.

Steve Cuden:
Thanks for joining us on Story Beat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, the journalist Richie McGinnis, has always craved action. As a reporter, he’s found it, and a lot more, in the chaos of the streets, embedding himself with protesters to cover the most divisive and violent demonstrations in American history. Richie may be a media professional of the new era, posting his intense, on-the-ground videos on social media.

but he brings an old school newsman’s credibility from his extensive professional experience and globetrotting life story. Ritchie studied Arabic and Middle Eastern history at Georgetown University and subsequently traveled to Jordan, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, and Egypt’s Tahrir Square less than a month before it became the flash point for the widespread protests and revolutions that erupted during the Arab Spring. Ritchie has worked at the Al Jazeera program, Min Washington,

broadcasting to households in Arabic throughout the Middle East as a production assistant at NBC News’s Washington Bureau and as the video director at Daily Caller, where he built a team of 10 video producers. While covering the demonstrations in Kenosha, Wisconsin, sparked by the police shooting of Jacob Blake, Richie witnessed Kyle Rittenhouse shoot Joseph Rosenbaum and nearly got shot himself when a bullet ricocheted near his foot. Richie was plunged into the national spotlight and praised for his clear

non-biased neutral reporting of the violence. On the ground for January 6, 2021, for the riot at the U.S. Capitol, Ritchie not only got closer to the action than virtually any other journalist, but he merged with a nuanced understanding of how news events can be interpreted and manufactured by the media. Ritchie recently published his book, Riot Diet, One Man’s Ride Through America and Chaos. I’ve read Riot Diet and can tell you it’s a powerful series of reports.

from some of the most infamous protest riots of our times. Though definitely not for the faint of heart, I highly recommend Richie’s book to anyone interested in an insider’s look at some of the people covering those events and how those incidents unfold. So for all those reasons and many more, it’s my distinct privilege to welcome the journalist Richie McGinnis to Storybeat today. Richie, thanks for joining me.

Richie McGinniss:
Thanks for having me. don’t know. Journalist is kind of a pejorative these days, so I’m still getting comfortable with it, but we can roll with that. yeah. I like the Hunter S Thompson quote. when the going gets, when, what is it? When the going gets tough, the tough get, what is it? When the, when the going gets hard, the professionals get weird, something like that.

Steve Cuden:
Hahaha

Well, what would you call yourself? Would you call yourself a documentarian, a social media influencer? What are you? Reporter?

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, something like that.

Steve Cuden:
Well, Hunter S. Thompson said a whole lot of things and he was a gonzo reporter. That was his moniker, you know. And do you think of yourself as a gonzo reporter too?

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, I can go with Gonzo reporter. prefer that over journalist. think, you know, the Gonzo approach is, rather than, I think every reporter in this day and age tries to tell you, Hey, I’m telling you the objective truth of who’s right and who’s wrong. And the Gonzo’s just said, Hey, here’s what I experienced. I’ll give you a subjective lens into how I experienced it. And that in my view gives you a better understanding of the reality of the situation. Then if I were to just say, here’s who’s right and here’s who’s wrong.

Steve Cuden:
Well, you try to, I assume you try to play it straight. You’re not trying to slant it toward one political viewpoint or another, are you?

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, same as covering the riots, my approach was always put the footage on the internet and let the audience decide for themselves. I certainly put opinion in the book because as I put in the intro, that’s just more fun. And also to elucidate why in my camera where I did, how I reacted to these situations. it’s definitely getting rarer by the day to have somebody at least not throw in their hat in one camp or the other.

Steve Cuden:
Well, there’s no question it’s all become political somewhat. When I was a kid, was all, you could turn on any of the three major networks and you would get the exact same news sort of read a little differently. Today, you’re getting this wider division of how people see the news and what they call their truth, which is very interesting to me, though scary sometimes. How old were you when you first started looking at the world through the lens of

Richie McGinniss:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Steve Cuden:
I want to be the person that reports back what’s happening in the world. How old were you? Were you a kid?

Richie McGinniss:
I was in sixth grade on 9-11-2001 and the subsequent Iraqi invasion really changed my future. It’s the reason why I decided to study Arabic, but also watching the invasion of Iraq. If you remember, CNN and MSNBC were just as for the war as Fox News. And it really informed me on how, number one, the press really determines where the country goes. And number two,

They’re supposed to be the ones who held the powerful to account. And in that particular case, in my estimation, they didn’t do that. And there was horrible repercussions that I witnessed when I traveled to the Middle East and I decided I wanted to try my best to fix it.

Steve Cuden:
What were the repercussions you experienced that caused you to want to fix it?

Richie McGinniss:
Well, I saw, I visited a bunch of refugee camps when I stayed in Amman, Jordan. And speaking with the Iraqi refugees, I was able to put a human face on the suffering that took place there. And then also the editor of my book, Anthony Swafford, who wrote Jarhead, was a Jarhead and he was in the first Gulf War. And then my boss at Daily Caller was also a Jarhead and he was in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Steve Cuden:
Mm-hmm.

Richie McGinniss:
And so speaking with veterans and the Iraqi refugees really, it just solidified the human toll that that war took on real people. And it’s really easy to sit in a studio and say, hey, we should go to war. But when you see that kind of suffering up close, it’s a much different perspective.

Steve Cuden:
Well, there are very few wars where there isn’t a lot of human suffering, that we know. mean, if you’re going to be in, if you use the word war, it usually implies somebody’s going to get hurt, if not a whole lot of somebody’s. At what point did you start to use a camera? How did you get good at that? You’re mostly a video reporter.

Richie McGinniss:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I actually took a darkroom class in fourth grade, so I was always interested in cameras and photography. And I took film for four years in high school and I thought I wanted to be a filmmaker, but I was gravitated towards news because it’s kind of where the rubber meets the road. You know, it’s reality. And like I said, it has a very real world impact the way that stories are reported on.

So that’s, yeah, I’ve always been interested in taking photos, but the video with the cell phone, you know, once I was working at NBC News, which is a cable news outlet, and I felt like I was working in a candle factory, right as electricity got invented. So I went to the digital side.

Steve Cuden:
Well, you don’t do the typical news reporters thing of coming out with a big tripod and a big camera and a lot of sound equipment and all this stuff. You just use your phone, right?

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, I mean, if I’m doing like a sit down interview, yeah, I’ll get the camera set up and the lights and whatnot. within the context of these protests, the cell phone affords you an ability to not only blend in, but also with if you stick a big camera in somebody’s face, then I think that they’re less likely to give you the unvarnished truth. Whereas if you just have a cell phone, you’re like, hey, what’s up, man? Can I ask you what’s up? What’s going on? Why are you here? You’re much.

Steve Cuden:
Because everybody has a cell phone in their hand, don’t they? So you just look like just another guy in the street rather than somebody special.

Richie McGinniss:
Exactly, exactly.

Yep. Yeah, and usually I’m dressing up like they are. So, you know, the idea is just to blend in and then, you know, I do tell them, can we do an interview? I’m gonna film this. Is that cool? And then when they say yes, yeah, just rip it and rip it.

Steve Cuden:
Well, your book is filled with images. You’ve put lots of pictures in there. And there’s lots of pictures of you in various, what I would call dicey circumstances. You live a life that I have no relationship to whatsoever. And we’re going to get into that a little bit because I don’t understand how you do it. But that’s a whole other thing. We’ll get to that. No doubt. I’m sure your mom is probably panicked every time you go out into the world.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, much to the chagrin of my mom. She, yeah, she makes me wear a helmet most times.

Steve Cuden:
Well, you of pictures of you wearing a helmet and goggles and face mask and covering and all that stuff. And even then you still get the heck beat out of you sometimes. What ever possessed you to want to do that?

Richie McGinniss:
Yep. Yeah. Yes, that’s correct.

I’m the middle of three boys. So, and I’m a surfer hockey player. So I, I grew up with a fair bit of chaos. I think it’s safe to say. And, when the protests and riots started in 2020, actually my business that I spent years building went out the window because, when the pandemic hit, we were all about on the ground reporting and, man on the street stuff and in-person interviews.

And nobody wants to watch a bunch of 20 somethings who are on my video team do interviews about COVID from their shoddy apartments. So our revenue went out the window, but when the protest started, it was very clear that being nimble and using a cell phone would allow us to get content that these big corporate media outlets with their huge fancy cameras weren’t getting. I really just, once we started, I just had to continue on because there was nobody else really doing that.

Steve Cuden:
Well, most of the time when you see news coverage of big events like the ones you cover, the reporters are off at a distance. You’re in the middle of

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, and that was always the goal, which is, you know, I’m not going to trust the police or the protesters to give me an unvarnished view of what’s going on. So kind of have to put yourself in the middle of that to really show people what it’s like in the belly of the beast. And yeah, I mean, took some Billy clubs and tear gas canisters and plenty of pepper balls and rubber bullets. But

Steve Cuden:
How many times have you been pepper sprayed, do know?

Richie McGinniss:
in the hundreds. I think it was like probably like 50 on January 6th alone.

Steve Cuden:
in the hundreds.

Has that affected your health in any way?

Richie McGinniss:
Hmm, probably. I quit smoking, so I think you know, I’m feeling better. I got pepper sprayed as a as a publicity stunt to sell books recently and I realized that I’m not as young as I used to be. Yeah, yeah. Well, my associate she really stepped into it, so I wasn’t expecting her to get that close with the pepper spray.

Steve Cuden:
No, that’s what happens as you get older and it’s not as much fun.

Richie McGinniss:
You can hear the Secret Service guys laughing in the video too. They were right in front of the White House.

Steve Cuden:
Do you… I’m sure they were getting a big thrill out of you getting pepper sprayed. Do you think of yourself as a, I don’t know what the right word would be, adventure seeker, thrill seeker, adrenaline junkie? Do you think of yourself that way?

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah.

Richie McGinniss:
I wouldn’t say adrenaline junkie. I would definitely say, you know, I grew up traveling the world surfing and you know, going off ski jumps and getting hit with hockey pucks. So I think that’s just kind of the normal for me. would.

Steve Cuden:
You were taking ski jumps and getting hit with hockey pucks at the same time?

Richie McGinniss:
Not at the same time, but yeah, usually within a couple days of each other. My hockey coach was always mad because I was always getting hurt on the slopes.

Steve Cuden:
Yeah. What do you think being a surfer and surfing in that world and I know you got in you write in the book about a couple incidents in which surfing almost got you So what do you think surfing and or hockey or or each or both? What do you think they’ve taught you about being able to react under pressure because you are under pressure all the time?

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, hockey is a very human endeavor. So you’re playing against a team and you have a team. So I definitely learned, you know, that when you’re in the trenches with your hockey boys, you got to look after each other. And I definitely took that mentality to the streets with my video team. I was charged with keeping them safe. I was the one who ended up putting myself in harm’s way most times. But, and surfing is…

Steve Cuden:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Richie McGinniss:
It’s in the environment and it’s you versus Mother Nature. And I think that really forces you to recognize that you’re at the mercy of bigger forces at play. being comfortable with that is a hard thing to wrap your head around. But if you can master it and learn the waves, then you can compete with Mother Nature and actually synergize yourself with it. So yeah, I think it makes you kind of comfortable with the chaos of the world.

Steve Cuden:
Do you think of events that you go to as sort of being like riding the waves where it comes and goes in waves?

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, one of the working titles for the book was Riot Surfer. My brother wanted that one. But definitely just bouncing around, you know, you kind of just like go with the flow. And also secondarily, showing up to a protest is a lot like showing up to a surfing lineup in some foreign country. You figure out who the heavy hitters, salty locals are, the guys who have been out to a bunch of protests, who the new the young groms are who don’t really know what they’re doing.

And, you know, find your way in between and, try not to get stepped on, try not to get hit. Yeah. Grom’s is a term. It’s a, it’s a colloquial term for young surfers. Grom it. Yeah. Grom’s.

Steve Cuden:
What did you call them, young groms? I’ve never heard that before.

And so when you go to a riot, almost feels like you’re doing a version of surfing.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, and surfing is very tribal as well. And these protests are all very tribal. It’s, you know, this political tribe or that political tribe. And, you know, the salty locals are the ones who run the lineup. And usually what I do is I find where the groms are on the inside, taking waves on the head, because they take the little waves because they’re the lowest part of the pecking order. And then the locals take all the good waves and you try to find your way in between there, see if you can snag one of the bigger waves on the outside or, you know, just scoop one off one of the Groms because they can’t beat you up.

Steve Cuden:
What an interesting way to look at that. That’s very fascinating. You know, there have been many, scholarly works about news events and history and so on. Obviously, you’re at that first, very first blush of history when you’re on a scene. And there have been many books written by reporters and journalists and so on. How is it that you think that what you’ve written will stand out? I can tell you what I think, but I’m curious what you think.

Richie McGinniss:
Mm-hmm, yeah. Well, I wrote the book. I was told by many publishers that if I wanted to sell books, I had to pick a side left or right. And I wanted this book to be something that put people in my shoes, whether it’s today or 20 years from now. And I didn’t write it to appeal to an audience so much as to capture that experience in my own words and not mince my words, just to confirm people’s biases. And I think today, if you look at the Trump era, almost every single book that’s been written about the topic is colored with he’s either orange man bad or the greatest guy since sliced bread. I think it stands out just because it’s not really thrown that I didn’t really throw my hat in either of those camps.

Steve Cuden:
Well, I think the way you wrote the book is very straightforward. It’s very honest and very from the heart and not and you’re and you’re reporting from the field as it is. It doesn’t have a slant on it other than there’s a certain amount of you can tell there’s fear. There’s a little fear. There’s a little bit of anxiety. There’s like, do I how do I get in this? How do I get out? Do you ever get into those middle of those things and think to yourself, how do I get out of this?

Richie McGinniss:
My slanted, other than my slanted brain. Yeah, definitely. I, know, like January six being a prime example stuck in that Capitol crush when I was in the rotunda, getting forced out. yeah. I followed it. mean, cause again, I’m not going to trust the feds or the protesters slash rioters to tell me what happened. And so I saw them streaming in from, I was up in the, this is the second book. So the first book covers all the BLM stuff and the second book covers all the MAGA unrest. so that’s coming out in a couple of months, but I was up in the.

Steve Cuden:
you were inside the Capitol.

Richie McGinniss:
without giving too much away, was up in the inauguration tower filming the breaking of the police line and I saw them streaming into the building and I had a moment where I was like, well, guess I got to go in there because that’s what I’ve been doing this whole time and you know, not going to not going to trust you to those two parties to tell me what happened. So I went in, I ended up on the other side of the house doors where the sergeant at arms had their guns drawn. I I was going to get caught in the crossfire yet again.

The cops peeled us off the doors and I was forced out into the Capitol Rotunda and just to encapsulate the roller coaster ride of that day my most viral clip of the day was a video of a guy smoking a joint under the Rotunda. So I mean it was the same as the BLM stuff which is you had people who were genuinely trying to agitate police and trying to break down the doors and stop the processions that were going on behind the doors and then you also had people who decided just to take the moment to smoke a joint. yeah, yeah.

Steve Cuden:
And do other things. I mean there were there’s all kinds of reports from stuff in there Did you wind up being arrested?

Richie McGinniss:
I did not. I had congressional press credentials, so technically I was allowed to be there. I was allowed into the Capitol even if there wasn’t a riot going on. But you know, I served my role as a journalist and I certainly got pepper sprayed, but I wasn’t, you know, bumping it. I got bumped by the cops because I was so well dressed. I had a gas mask, a bulletproof helmet, a bulletproof backpack, and a bulletproof vest. This is like six months into the unrest. was

My first thought when I showed up was why am I better prepared than most of these cops? So they thought that I was an agitator just because of how well prepared I was.

Steve Cuden:
And that I want to get into the preparation in a bit, but I want to continue on this line for a moment. How did, so one of your things is that you embed with protesters. mean, that’s the word you use embedded. How does one go about embedding with people who are, you know, clearly not sanctioned by anyone, they’re out doing their thing.

Richie McGinniss:
Well, it’s similar to going to a surfing lineup or traveling to a foreign country, speaking Arabic or speaking Spanish. It’s like you learn how they talk, how they walk, and you throw on the same clothes as them and just kind of get in there and say, Hey, what’s up? Why are you guys out here? And I think the most important aspect of elucidating the, their version of why they’re there, telling me and the public what in their own mind they’re doing there. You have to gain some trust. And so in order to do that, have to talk to talk and walk the walk.

Steve Cuden:
Well, do they know you’re there to be reporting on them or do they think that you’re one of them?

Richie McGinniss:
Yes. Well, it’s usually like you talk to him for a little bit. That’s why in the book I outline my my riot. Not only my attire, but also my little toolkit of at the BLM stuff, I brought White Claws and joints and at the MAGA stuff I would bring Budweiser’s and cigarettes. But that’s a that’s a way of saying, hey, like let’s just crack a cold one and talk about it. And I think that’s you know.

Steve Cuden:
Mm-hmm.

Richie McGinniss:
elemental to gaining somebody’s trust. And if you’re trying to get the unvarnished truth out of them, then if you stick a big camera in their face or if you’re, you know, speaking like a reporter and saying, how, are you out here right now? They’re not gonna, they’re gonna put their kind of like interview hat on instead of just talking to you like a human being.

Steve Cuden:
So you go in, and I’ll use this term loosely, but you’re the cool dude in the crowd, not the straight uptight guy with the press credential.

Richie McGinniss:
Exactly. And not that I’m the coolest guy, but I definitely, you know, try to just express to them that I at least understand why they’re there. I do think that the overwhelming majority of people that I talk to, whether on the left or the right, we’re out there with good intentions. You know, what happens when the pepper spray comes out is a different story. But if I, you know, if you wear this big press, on your chest, also people are immediately gonna ask, where do you work? And that’s a very dangerous thing in certain situations if they find out that you work in an outlet that they don’t like. And so, just with the cell phone and no affiliation to the press, it’s just like, hey, I’m just a dude with a cell phone here.

Steve Cuden:
Mm-hmm. Is my memory failing me or are there not pictures in the book of you with with press on the back of your jacket?

Richie McGinniss:
Nope, never WordPress. Not once.

Steve Cuden:
Maybe I was thinking there’s somebody else in the picture that has press on them.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, they’re probably yeah, they’re there. Yeah, there were plenty of people who did have press on their Julio was one guy who was out with and we all have our own different styles of how to go. But I always view it as I’d rather be at the mercy of police thinking that I’m one of the protesters slash rioters rather than I had actually a situation in June of 2020, which I wrote about in the book where a guy with a big camera was got too close to a flag that was burning.

And a bunch of people saw him filming it and they told him to delete the footage and he refused and he got sucker punched in the back of the head. And it was like, I’ve seen concussions and that was about as bad as it gets. So.

Steve Cuden:
Well, I think you I think if I remember right, you’ve been concussed as well.

Richie McGinniss:
yeah, for sure. It’s definitely, I don’t know how many screws have been knocked loose, I guess I can still write good, kind of good.

Steve Cuden:
Well, well, okay, so don’t take this the wrong way. I think you had a screw loose before you started doing this.

Richie McGinniss:
yeah, I came out of the womb breach. know, that’s a butt first into the world. So it’s been like that for a while.

Steve Cuden:
You instantly began to see the world sideways, didn’t you?

Richie McGinniss:
Yes, it’s correct. And also being sandwiched in between an older and younger brother.

Steve Cude:
How important is it, do you think that you do have that ability to see the world from a different perspective than, let’s say, the average bear?

Richie McGinniss:
Well, going back to being a middle brother, from the moment I can remember, I was either the older brother who knows everything, showing the younger brother the ropes, or the younger brother who’s following the coattails of the older brother and hoping they take you on their adventures. And so from the moment that I can remember, I’ve always had one role or the other, either the older brother or the younger brother. And I think when it comes to reporting, you have to, you know,

take on a different mentality. It’s like a defense attorney will argue for a man that they know is guilty because they’re doing their job or a surgeon. An average person isn’t going to cut somebody open, but a surgeon takes on that role. so I think reporters, definitely there’s a certain amount of detachment that have to take from your own opinions in order to do the job properly, in my opinion.

Steve Cuden:
Well, great, great lead to a question, is how do you stay detached when all hell is breaking loose around you?

Richie McGinniss:
Well, I try. think actually after Kenosha, after witnessing Kyle Root in the house shoot Joseph Rosenbaum, I became very acutely aware of not only my role as a journalist, but also as a witness. And that really forced me to be very open with my role in that situation, which is

I’m here to say what I saw and, you know, injecting my opinion won’t add anything because that’s not my role in that situation. So, I think that that after Kenosha, it really solidified that in order to do my job properly, I, yeah, I have to take a certain amount of detachment from the emotions of the moment. And in fact, the most critical moments after Kenosha and after January 6th, you know, I

got thrown into the news cycle and people took my statements out of context and I got really emotional but it was always my boss, Jeff, who’s a jarhead, who’s a tough guy or my family and friends who’d say, hey, calm down, let’s go through the proper channels, let’s figure this out, don’t get too emotional here.

Steve Cuden:
Well, okay, so now you’re in, I’m imagining you’re in the middle of, you know, just craziness. It’s the fog of war, essentially. You’re in the middle of a battle. And you’re also trying to remain somewhat unemotional and detached so you can do this reporting. Is there a mental technique that you go through to stay there? How do you, because I would be running the other way. You’re running into it.

Richie McGinniss:
I definitely did some running. definitely did plenty of running. Some near muggings there along the way. But I think, you know, I’m a very emotional person just generally. And like I said, I think it. Well, that’s a great question, and I don’t think that I always did the best job of remaining unemotional, but I had Shelby Talcott, who was my coworker at the time. She’s a very unemotional person.

Steve Cuden:
So how does an emotional person remain unemotional?

Richie McGinniss:
And my dad who set an example, he was, he was an ER doctor. And, so I really just kind of would try to embody their ethos in those situations. And I think the best way to, to move forth in a proper way is to take it from example. And so, yeah, I just use the people around me to, for support.

Steve Cuden:
So let’s take it from the beginning of how this happens. You somehow get word that there’s going to be an event. People are protesting. You know there’s likely to be a riot that breaks out. You go to a specific location, whether it’s Portland or Kenosha or Washington, wherever it is. What do you do as you’re preparing to go? What do you take with you? What do you prep? How do you do research? What do you do?

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, definitely do research, especially, you know, most of these protests happen because of a police involved shooting or an election. And if you’re going to ask the proper questions when you’re out there, you have to know why the people at least why they think they’re there. And so definitely that’s just cursory research, but then also secondarily understanding who the people are that are on the ground. And that’s why I put a lot of history in the book, because I think

Steve Cuden:
I would think so. Yeah.

Richie McGinniss:
understanding a place like Wisconsin, people have a totally different view on the world and on what America should be than in New York or in DC or in any of these coastal cities. And so you kind of have to understand not only why the people are out there, but who the people are.

Steve Cuden:
And do you do that mostly on the internet or in another way?

Richie McGinniss:
I definitely was like reading books while I was the history of all these different places. And that’s more just for like personal enjoyment, but, also, yeah. So I was in all these like telegram chats with like the hardcore lefty protesters or the proud boys. so viewing those chats on these, encrypted applications, like telegram or signal, you get an idea for how those people think and, and when they’re talking to each other, that’s really where you get the most unvarnished version of what their view is.

Steve Cuden:
Do you ever read stuff that makes you a little on the anxious side that you’re going to go meet up with some of these people or is it just…

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, for sure. Definitely. Especially, I mean, in both cases on the left and the right, just to see the anger that’s palpable in these chats. And also like in Seattle, in Chaz, which was like a six block area that the police ceded to the protesters, we filmed the Proud Boys beat the crap out of this guy. they, two of the guys were on probation. And so we…got effectively our footage when we published it, revealed that these guys were violating their probation, not only for assaulting somebody, but also because they left the state that they were supposed to be in. And so, you know, the Proud Boys did not like us after that. And it’s a scary thing. Those are a lot of big dudes in that group. so I was always looking over my shoulder, worried that they would recognize me. And…

Yeah, there was some hairy situations that I won’t give away to the reader in the second book where I got cornered by some proud boys at a protest.

Steve Cuden:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, I know you got shot at at least once with the Kyle Rittenhouse event, but have you been shot at other times?

Richie McGinniss :
Other than pepper balls? Nope. Other than skeet shooting? No, I haven’t been shot at. No.

Steve Cuden :
Alright, so when you prep, you already talked about wearing bulletproof backpack and bulletproof vest and so on. What do you physically take with you that’s a standard kit for you?

Richie McGinniss:
So I need my nicotine pouches to keep me calm. I need… Yeah. That’s essential. then, I mean, during the riots, I actually didn’t smoke cigarettes, but I did during the riots. And I’ve given that up despite my raspy voice. And so I had those with me and I had the suds as a peace offering that I would bring out. And then I would dress up.

Steve Cuden:
Naked tea pouches. It’s interesting that that was your very first thing.

Richie McGinniss:
the way that they dressed. So I’d be wearing, you know, black all black if I was going to BLM thing or even a Black Lives Matter shirt like I was wearing on the night in Kenosha. And, you know, I’d wear like khakis and usually like a dark hoodie if I was going to the MAGA stuff because there’s always counter protesters. So I would want to blend in with both groups. So I would wear something that was kind of neutral for both sides. But other than that, nothing really. Yeah, a bulletproof vest once I almost got shot.

I decided it was maybe good to put that on. And running shoes, running shoes, so you can run away if you need to. No, and I, in the book, I made the mistake of wearing fake news flip flops to one of those riots. Yeah. Well, I was running out the door as I just did. I didn’t even honestly think about it. It was the middle of the summer. Those are the shoes that were by the door and I didn’t think things were going to get hairy like they did.

Steve Cuden:
That’s a good idea. No, no hard-soled shoes. Well, you have a picture of that in the book and I was going to ask you, how does one wear flip-flops to a riot?

Richie McGinniss:
So I ended up slipping them off my feet and stashing them in my back pocket. But unfortunately, I lost those flip flops. Yeah, I was barefoot during the Jackson statue. Yep. Yep.

Steve Cuden:
You you were barefoot? You do like to live on the edge. There’s no doubt about it. Who do you think is usually more of a threat to you being out there, the police or the rioters?

Richie McGinniss:
Hahaha

I gotta retire at some point. I would say the rioters just because the police at least in theory have a rule book. mean, granted in Portland, the cop, one cop shot me with a tear gas canister directly. We were supposed to shoot it off the ground and slower the velocity down. He shot me in the arm. Then I bent down to pick up my phone. I was live on Facebook and then he shot me again in the leg directly. So not every cop plays by the rules, but

Like I said, I would rather get shot with that than sucker punched in the back of the head.

Steve Cuden:
Well, you don’t know that that isn’t his set of rules.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, well, apparently it is. And I mean, I’m sure he got a good laugh out of it. Our viewers, the viewers at home who are watching it live didn’t realize their camera guy just got blasted other than the swear words, but.

Steve Cuden:
So I’ve been in the entertainment business my entire life. I’ve been in show business my entire life. And I’ve never been even vaguely close to anything like what you do. And so I think to myself, how would I even, if I got caught up in it, how would I get out of it? Do you have escape plans going in or are you just working it through?

Richie McGinniss:
Definitely, I’m always looking for who’s surrounding me and who’s within punching distance. And, you know, determining whether or not I can get out of there, especially in the cases where somebody comes up and says, nice phone, man, like, okay, that means you’re about to mug me. I’m going to get out of here. But yeah, I guess, you know, sometimes I did a much poorer job of staying out of the out of the tough situations than others. But

Steve Cuden:
Well, you were learning. How would you know unless you get into it, right? There’s no school you can go to to learn how to be in a riot.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, and especially those school that you can go to to tell you how to respond when you get hit with some pepper spray because that that really activates a fight or flight response that you have to kind of take a deep breath and say like, Okay, I still need to use my thinking part of my brain here.

Steve Cuden:
Alright, so now you just said something interesting to me. You were hit by pepper spray and you took a deep breath?

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, well, it’s kind of hard to take it depends on where you get the pepper spray. The best thing to do actually is to shoot the snot out of your nose and rub it in your eyes. That’s actually because the water makes it burn more because it targets your mucous membranes and its moisture activated. So like if you sweat two days later after getting pepper sprayed, you’ll feel the burn. So yeah, the best way to go is just snot in a towel. It’s not in a t shirt. If you don’t have a towel.

Steve Cuden:
So I know you have an extensive amount of information in the book about your father who you already brought up. What did he teach you that has held you in good stead under all these extenuating circumstances?

Richie McGinniss:
Well, he always was composed in high pressure situations as a byproduct of being a surgeon. So definitely at least tried my best to take a page out of his book. But then also like in Kenosha, when Rosenbaum got shot in front of me, I had seen my dad save multiple lives just when we were out in public, just somebody dove into the sandbar or got hit by a car. And at that point in those kinds of situations that

The thinking part of your brain goes completely out the window and it’s pure circuitry. so having those experiences growing up just kind of, there’s no thinking that goes on in that situation. It’s pure instinct. Yeah, exactly. Kind of like surfing a Yeah. You train. Yeah. And that’s why you turn, know, that’s why people train. And so that when they get into those situations, I was not trained for that situation, but, uh, I,

Steve Cuden:
It’s doing, not thinking.

like surfing a wave, you’re either going with it or you’re in trouble,

Richie McGinniss:
I had seen my dad do it and I obviously failed in my efforts to save Joseph Rosenbaum, but I did, you know, jump in and try my best.

Steve Cuden:
Well, you did something that, you know, reporters typically do not do, and that’s get into the middle of the fray. And you did that because a man was hurt.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, I mean, you know, in those kinds of situations, it’s like, you know, why did you decide to do that? But like I said, it’s there’s no decision making that goes on. With that being said, you know, it was evident from the moment he got shot that I was no longer in filming mode, but I was in help this guy out mode, good Samaritan mode instead. And yeah, I think, you know, reporters have a tendency to want to be a fly on the wall, which I was in most of those situations, but.

When something really bad happens, that’s obviously priorities change.

Steve Cuden:
And I’m assuming that you’ve never been in another circumstance in which something that severe has occurred right in front of you, or have you?

Richie McGinniss:
I’ve seen some pretty hairy injuries, but nothing like somebody getting shot at close range with an AR-15. Yeah.

Steve Cuden:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. For sure. Now, so you’re an excellent writer. Your book is very much in your voice. And I could hear your voice as I was reading, which is a wonderful thing. Where did you learn how to write?

Richie McGinniss:
That’s a good question. I was a history major in college, Arabic minor, and I’ve always done a lot of reading, but I hadn’t written since college. And so it was like 10, 11 years before I picked up a pen again. I had been doing video for all those years. And I guess just, I, you know, I spent a lot of time reading. a big film buff and I love storytelling.

And it, but it did take me a lot of time to find my voice. And I think ultimately my decision to publish the book with my own publishing company that I started for the book, really actually sharpen my, my pencil because I was like, I’m not writing this for to sell it to anybody. I’m writing this for me. And that I think really forced me to say, okay, what, who, how do, do I write?

you know, it’s, ultimately it’s, I, wanted it to come across as, as I, as if I’m talking and, but there is, you know, there’s a certain art to it, I guess, uh, same as composing a shot, which is like, you know, you want to set the scene. You want to give people an idea of where they’re at. And then also you want to establish who you are so that people are willing to trust the narrator and go along for the ride.

Steve Cuden:
For sure. Well, it’s the old who, what, where, when, why, and how. mean, that’s in there. Now, are you telling me that in all the time that you were out there in the field, you didn’t make notes? I assume you didn’t write anything when you were in the middle of it, but you didn’t go back to your home and sit down and write notes and…

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah. No. No, and I didn’t even realize that I was going to write a book until after January 6th because I was one of very few people who had witnessed the breath of unrest that I did witness. And when I started writing the book, I was really just going through all the footage and writing down the chaos and it didn’t really make any sense at first. And then about a year in, I got put in touch with Anthony Swafford, who’s the author of Jarhead. And he’s the one who really, number one, helped me clean up the chaos and make some sense of it, also identify who I am as a writer and also really encourage me to put a lot of the personal stuff in there because if you read Jarhead, there’s a lot of very personal stuff and I think it really gives you a good idea, not only of who the writer is, but also what it was like, like it puts you in their shoes and I think that gives the reader the actual experience of being there.

Steve Cuden:
Well, I think that’s what makes your book wonderful is that it’s not you are reporting, but the good part about it, not the word good is wrong. The intriguing part about it is that it is from your point of view. It is you telling us what you’re going through. You’re not actually interviewing people and getting a ton of their points of view or their politics or their feelings. It’s about you and your point of view and how you’re experiencing it.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah.

Steve Cuden:
So that makes it very compelling when you’re reading it because you, the reader is able to vicariously live through some of what you went through without the danger.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, well, and I think that was that was the hardest part for me was if you’re going to if you’re going to do that, then you have to put not only your triumphs, but most especially your failures. And that was really difficult for me to put the situations that I was really vulnerable into writing, because, you know, it’s not because, you know, especially my dad, he was always.

Steve Cuden:
Why?

Richie McGinniss:
very stoic and always presented his best self to the world. And I think that he imparted that I should always present my best self to the world. With that being said, the exercise of writing the book, I realized that if…

You know, if I’m to put the good stuff in there and I’m giving the reader the full experience that I have to also put the bad stuff in there. And so that was just difficult because it’s like, you know, not your, not your brightest moments need to go in there. And there, there are, there are lot of dark moments, not only in the first book, but the second one. And, you know, some, some experiences of getting thrown into the news cycle and you don’t look so good. And it’s, it’s, you know, they say that a person’s number of what is it?

it’s number one fear is public humiliation and number two is death. Yeah.

Steve Cuden:
Well, I think that’s right. Most people do not want to publicly speak. That’s a gigantic fear for a huge number of people. And in fact, when I started to teach, I had to overcome a certain amount of that. And then you do it for a little while and it’s not such a big deal. I assume you have a similar thing that happened for you when you were literally reporting and being on TV and being interviewed and so on, that you had to overcome a certain amount of it. And then it became second nature.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah. Mm. Mm-hmm. Well, and going on the biggest cable news show at the time, within 24 hours of witnessing a shooting was like, yeah, that was Tucker. And then I did CNN. well, after they took my words out of context from Tucker, I, they wouldn’t have had me on if they hadn’t have so egregiously misrepresented what I said. But by the time I was doing the CNN stuff or other news hits after the fact, I was like, well, if I can do it in front of 5 million people,

Steve Cuden:
Was that Tucker Carlson?

Richie McGinniss:
after having just witnessed the shooting, then this is gonna be easy.

Steve Cuden:
Well, I can tell you for fact certain that there’s not much in the book that’s rosy. You don’t fancy it up so that it seems clean in some way. It feels like you’re going through what you’re going through.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And it wasn’t, I mean, it wasn’t Rosie. And I think, you know, that the, the, the later on in the story and the second book, I start to pick up the pieces and emerge a little bit out of the chaos. but yeah, I mean, it was a chaotic time, not only because of what was going on in the world, but also in my personal life, I had lost my dad. And, so yeah, I mean, it was, it was a tough time and I wanted, you know, to get that across to the reader just cause

Steve Cuden:
Mm-hmm. So many people do not suffer trauma well. You’ve been through a lot of trauma in different ways. Not only the loss of your dad, but the experience, which you’ve experienced out in the world. Do you have a method for helping you get through that trauma or not reliving it or not having PTSD or anything like that?

Richie McGinniss:
I do now it’s writing. Yeah. And yeah, definitely because I was holding onto a lot of anger about what happened, not only to the people around me, but also me personally. And I really was able to let go of that once I not only put it in writing, but also made some sense of the madness through writing. So that was very cathartic. And other than that, just some nice waves or

Steve Cuden:
writing. That’s your catharsis.

Richie McGinniss:
or a good pick up hockey game, that helps.

Steve Cuden:
Well, I’m very impressed that you did not write for all that time and yet you’re a very good writer. So something was in you already when you got to the book.

Richie McGinniss:
I appreciate that. I guess so. My mom and my brothers will tell you I’m good at, I’ve always been a talker. So I guess, and it’s not a short book. but I mean, I do want to stress to the listeners that it was not an easy process at first. And I, I went through 150 different drafts. mean, I must’ve printed the first book out. I’m now, now with the second book, even Anthony Swofford said, wow, this is so much easier to edit because you’re reading, you’re, writing out of the can is so much better than it was.

Steve Cuden:
No, it’s not a short book at all.

Steve Cuden:
you’ve gone through one book, so now you know what you’re doing a little bit.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, a little bit and maybe in an ideal scenario.

Steve Cuden:
Well, I listen, I think writing is a muscle and the more that you write, the better you get at it, just like anything else. And so once you’ve been through it, I did this. And then you’ve learned a certain number of, I’m not going to do that again. And, and so you, that’s right. That’s right. And, and so you think you did 150 drafts or were you being a little hyperbolic or you think it was.

Richie McGinniss:
For sure, yeah. Yeah, and exactly make all the mistakes in order to not make them again. Yeah. Oh yeah, no, no, I literally printed out. Yeah, 150 drafts, no joke, like I read it 150 times and I mean at a certain point you get numb to it and you really like but so the first book took me. Basically almost three years to finish and that was really because yeah, I was learning how to write and I was passing it around to not only Anthony Swafford. I also had a copy editor.

Steve Cuden:
That’s impressive.

Richie McGinniss:
KD who she is actually like, so she’s kind of the opposite. She’s, from San Francisco. She’s a bleeding heart liberal. Not that Swafford is like overtly conservative, but he is a jar head. It’s kind of a gruff, you know, uh, military type guy. And, um, she’s the opposite of that. And I wanted to get the opposite perspective. And it was really helpful to give it to also somebody who didn’t know me because they really give you the, their take without being colored by, because I had originally, my mom was my original editor and my brothers, and they’re always kind of, you know, injecting their personal relationship with you into the whole situation. So yeah, my mom still helps me edit, but definitely it’s really helpful to get somebody who just like doesn’t even know you at all. And you just throw it in front of them and say, what do you think?

Steve Cuden:
sure, of course. Well, that’s the way it should be because if you only present your work to people who like you, love you, are your friends, they’re not going to tell you the honest truth if they think it’s not good.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah. Well, my mom is not afraid to tell me what she honestly thinks, but, or my brother’s for that matter, but almost to a fault. Like my brother will like go out of his way to tell me what’s Yeah.

Steve Cuden:
Hahaha!

Maybe they enjoy it a little too much. So I noticed that you very cleverly in each of the chapters and each of the stories about the different riots, you then take a certain book and quote from it in the various little sub chapters within each of the chapters. So you have Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, The Epic of Gilgamesh.

You have the book of Matthew and the book of Mark from the Bible. You have Lord of the Flies, the great Gatsby, the Empire Strikes Back, and Invictus. Why those?

Richie McGinniss:
Mm-hmm. Well, I’m, guess, you know, without revealing too much to ruin it for the reader, I very much. Yeah. Well, I, know, every, I was just very cognizant of the fact while I was out there that everybody’s kind of writing their own story, especially in this day and age, you know, everybody has a megaphone, with their cell phone and the internet. And not only like I chose those stories because they’re

Steve Cuden:
You’re not gonna ruin it.

Richie McGinniss:
uniquely American stories and actually the so the first book is essentially I mean, it’s not a critique, but I’m certainly looking in on the BLM protests and giving my understanding of it and what it means and so I used those books and stories with male masculine protagonists and writers and then in the second book I use all female feminine

protagonists and writers because I view the first book as like kind of a masculine critique on the left. And then the second book is I actually talked about my dad a lot in the first book. And then I talked about my mom in the second book, like Swafford was like, why’d you you know, where’s your mom, I want more of your mom in there. was like, I left her out of it on purpose, because I put her in the second book. And, you know, it’s a a it’s a feminine critique on the ogre daddy Trump. To put it simply.

Steve Cuden:
Ha ha ha. And so, you, the quotes are wonderful, which is, you know, clearly you didn’t need any, well, I shouldn’t say that. Did you need rights to any of those quotes? I mean.

Richie McGinniss:
No, I didn’t need rights to the quotes. it would only because, know, it’s, it’s excerpt and then there’s, there’s a requisite amount of commentary involved, but, I did spend a lot of time thinking about those quotes and, trying to choose. I mean, I read each of those books a couple of times before I put them in there, but also, I, know, like Lord, I was thinking of Lord of the Flies constantly when I was in Seattle and that’s the book that I use, for that chapter because it really was Lord of the Flies type situation. And yeah, mean, like Great Gatsby, obviously that’s for the New York chapter. I chose the Empire Strikes Back because they played the Imperial Death March every time the feds came out. And I was reading Great Gatsby when I was up in New York. I like to read books that are from the region and when I’m visiting it, like if I’m traveling in a foreign country, I’ll try to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez if I’m in Columbia or whatever.

And so, and I was thinking of Star Wars when I was in Portland, because they were playing the Imperial Death March. And then I did think of Invictus, because that was the poem that I read to my dad when he was sick. And when I was going through a tough time myself, I touched on that poem a lot.

Steve Cuden:
Well, I think that’s a thank you for explaining that because that makes it even clearer because you don’t explain why you’re using these quotes. The quotes are they’re attached to these chapters and they enhance what you’re about to talk about at the top of a chapter. But that that makes it even clearer. So thank you for saying that. Did you have when you were writing the book now, you say that you took no notes that whole time. So you were looking back at your video footage and then.

Richie McGinniss:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Steve Cuden:
figuring out what it is you were gonna say from those experiences. Did you have any eureka moments where you went, holy mackerel, I didn’t think of that at the time.

Richie McGinniss:
yeah. cause I, I, I watched the videos the second time when I was writing the book, I watched them on an iPad and there were all these different details of like, my God, I didn’t realize that guy had a gun too. and you know, I wanted for the book to, I didn’t want to use too much hindsight because I wanted for the reader to understand it as I understood it at the time. But with that being said, you know, I think of like,

Orwell writing Farewell to Catalonia. It’s like this dude was just in a trench with a notebook and it’s so much easier to jog your memory when you have this thousands of videos to go off of so there’s no actually the most difficult thing was like turning that firehose of video information into something that’s you know a cognizant thought and storyline.

Steve Cuden:
How long did that take you to do to go through it all?

Richie McGinniss:
I don’t even. yeah, for sure. And I went through him over and over again and it was. I mean, yeah, like I said, the hardest part was was making sense of it. And but what I did at first was just write down what happened with the details from the video to jog my memory. And then I kind of went in after I wrote that just the the baseline.

Steve Cuden:
Months, I assume. Mm-hmm.

Richie McGinniss:
structure of what happened. then I added in, you know, the context of what the press was saying, what the politicians were saying, what these places were like. And yeah, I think, I mean, it was a very long process. It was not very efficient the first time around.

Steve Cuden:
So I think some, if not all of your book, although I think you could do different, you could do a series, should be a movie of some kind. Do you, have you thought about that? Have you gone to anybody with this?

Richie McGinniss:
Swafford said that he wants to write it. but I, I haven’t yet because I think that it’s still too close to home and like, you know, it’s, it’s a very, there’s a lot of politics in there. And I think people are so emotionally charged right now that it might take a little bit of time before somebody’s willing to put that on screen. But, I. Yeah.

Steve Cuden:
It is fairly recent. Most of what’s in the book is historically is fairly recent. And sometimes what you’re doing in the book, what you’re writing about in the book probably needs 20 or 30 years of distance.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah. Yeah, but I did, you know, just by virtue of the fact that I was doing video at the time, like I was always thinking of how the shot was composed and I had a visual way of viewing those situations. So just my memory of how I experienced things had a visual element to it. And so I think that kind of came through in the writing, I guess.

Steve Cuden:
So I’m also curious, the images again, back that are you put into the book, they’re all your pictures, correct?

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, yeah, except with in the cases where they’re not. I put credit so like if I’m in the photo, you know, Bodie, I use the pseudonyms. Those are all point break characters that I use the pseudonyms because some of my friends, you know that I don’t blame them for not wanting to be named in the book. So I I. No, not all of them. Some of them. Yes, Bodie is a risk taker in the way it’s for sure.

Steve Cuden:
Yes, yes. They’re not risk takers like you in that way.

They’re risk takers out on the waves.

Steve Cuden:
but they don’t want to be exposed as someone who’s in the middle of your world.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, like some of my buddies are like, you know, just like they’re like, I’m a lawyer, man. I don’t want to be in your book. Like, you know, you can give me, give me a cool point break name.

Steve Cuden:
So you didn’t need to obtain rights to any of those pictures because they were…

Richie McGinniss:
So I did because I was working for the Daily Caller and technically they owned all the images, but I called it my get shot at retirement package. They gave me a sweet deal on the licensing for the photos. So and down the road I’m gonna do a digital version that has the videos embedded as well, but trying to get the second book done first. But yeah, because I have all those videos I do want to definitely give the reader the opportunity to watch them if they want to.

Steve Cuden:
wow. yeah. but you don’t own them.

Richie McGinniss:
No, but I’ll get a sweetheart deal.

Steve Cuden:
Well, that’s a question that I like to ask people that have photos and things like that in a book, because that’s an issue for a lot of people that are writing their first book, whatever it is, how do you obtain those rights? In this case, you had an inside track to them.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah. Yeah. And I got permission from the people who took the photographs. Usually they’re just like, yeah, take it. I did the guy who took the photos, E. Mackie, who took photos of me and Kenosha. I offered to pay him, but he was like, I believe in what you’re doing and you can have them for free. And for the second book I have, I bought one image from the epoch times I was watching it. I followed all the surveillance footage because you can go to the, the speaker of the house basically opened up these terminals in the the Capitol Hill office building where you can go and view the surveillance footage. So I followed myself from Independence Avenue where I hopped on my skateboard when I got into traffic and I skateboarded through traffic and I was rushing down there because I knew something was going on. I didn’t think that things were going to pop off until it got dark like the previous stuff, the steel rallies. But as it turned out, I might

now wife and girlfriend told me I see cops running around. I was like, it’s on already. And so I raced down there and I followed myself going all the way up the inauguration tower down the inauguration tower. And I actually, follow myself all the way through the Capitol, but I climbed a wall to get around. There was like a long line of people going up the stairs of the Western, Esplanade there. And there was no line to climb the 20 foot wall. So I climbed up the wall.

And that was the one blind spot of the surveillance camera. so I couldn’t find that, any images of that. And that was kind of like the most ridiculous part of my experience of the day, just as far as what I did. But I was watching a documentary by the Epoch Times and I was like, what is that? There it is. That’s me. That’s me going up the wall. And actually my skateboard falls down as I’m climbing over the wall in the footage. So I…

I obtained a screenshot of that for the cover of the second book.

Steve Cuden:
That probably looks to the average viewer as why is this fool carrying a skateboard up a wall?

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, well, the funniest part about I mean, there wasn’t much that was funny that day. But the funniest part about that was the fact that my skateboard fell as I was climbing over this guy was like, here we go, brother. And I was so well dressed. He thought I was like, you know, one of the frontline guys helping to break down the doors. But he yanked me up my skateboard fell. I was like, all right, there goes the skateboard. And I continued through the Congo line following everybody in and

Steve Cuden:
No!

Richie McGinniss:
The same guy tapped me on the shoulder and said, here we go, brother. somebody had grabbed my skateboard from down below and they fireman passed it back up and gave it back to me. I didn’t. Yeah. And I ended up losing it. I actually surrendered my skateboard because it was too cumbersome in the Capitol crush. And I actually literally, I, this is another thing that I found out in the video afterwards. I put it under which painting the jet, surrender of general Cornwallis. So I lost that skateboard. It’s in an evidence locker somewhere. got a fight.

Steve Cuden:
Really? Man. Is that the singular most extraordinary remembrance you have of that day or what would be the singular most extraordinary?

Richie McGinniss:
somewhere. But the singular most extraordinary was, and this is again, my mom being incorporated into the second story. January 6th, 2021 was my mom’s 69th birthday. And I was hanging from the inauguration tower and she called me on her birthday and I had to ignore her call. Sorry, mom. But that was definitely like the one, the memory that stuck out the most from that day.

Steve Cuden:
my. Wow. And once again, isn’t it interesting? It was a personal moment.

Richie McGinniss:
Yes, exactly. And that’s kind of where you, you know, you’re like, it brings you back into, wait, this is real life. And, you know, this, these are all real people because it’s so surreal that you almost feel like you’re in a dream state.

Steve Cuden:
Well, you’re the first person I’ve ever spoken to that was in the middle of that. So I can’t imagine how surreal it was watching it on TV, which I was doing was surreal. So being in the middle of it must have been extraordinary.

Richie McGinniss:

Yeah, it was, I mean, because I’d been in that Capitol Rotunda before, but not with a riot going on. And to hear the screams and the sounds of like what sounded like medieval warfare in that place was really bizarre, for lack of a better word.

Steve Cuden:
I really can’t imagine. mean, you I can see video footage of it, but I can’t imagine what it was like to be in it. Well, I’ve been having absolutely one of the most fascinating conversations I’ve ever had for just shy of an hour now with Richie McGinnis, who’s written this fantastic book called Riot Diet. And we’re going to wind the show down a little bit. And I’m wondering in all of these wild experiences you’ve had, can you share with us a story that is either weird, quirky, offbeat, strange, or just plain funny?

that you haven’t already shared with.

Richie McGinniss:
Um, yeah, okay. I got one. Um, so this week, I think it’s, it’s appropriate because this week is for those who don’t know that the CPAC, which is the conservative political action committee, it’s this big, like, uh, uh, conservative event where you like Trump is speaking on Saturday. And, in 2018, I was at CPAC, uh, just interviewing people who were out there and, uh, Geraldo Rivera was.

I got out of the elevator with my coworker and Geraldo Rivera was right there. And I was like, Geraldo, like as if I knew him. And he turned around like with a smile, like, do I know this guy? And he’s kind of looking at me, waiting for me to say something. And I just said, what’s in the vault? Cause Geraldo, Geraldo, for those who don’t know, it was the most watched news event in history. He advertised this, we’re going to go into Al Capone’s vault and what’s going to be in there and what’s in the vault. He would say in all the promos. And I remember this when I was like a little kid.

was like this huge news event, hundreds of millions of people tuned in and it was like bigger than the Super Bowl and there was nothing in the vault. And so his smile just goes to a frown and he just says, F you, A. He said some bad things. And my coworker was like, why did you do that? I was like, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know why I did that, but it was funny.

Steve Cuden:
Nothing in the vault. And he didn’t try to push you away or anything, did he?

Richie McGinniss:
No, no, we were like, like 10 feet away and he just turned and walked away. And, and he’s like, you know, he’s like, like conservatives would be like, you know, kissing the round that he walks on. But, my mom worked in show business ever since I was a kid. She’s actually since the seventies and, she always just treated the, the stars like they were normal people. So I guess maybe I should have treated her although a little better. Sorry.

Steve Cuden:
Well, the stars still have to put their pants on one leg at a time. It took me a long time in Hollywood to understand that they were just people and not somebody that were perfect on a screen. That’s a…

Richie McGinniss:
Exactly. Yep. Yeah, I’ll save this. I’ll save the second book. I’m not going to give it away, but I did meet Trump in 2015. I don’t want to give the details, but yeah, you got to tune in for the second one for that.

Steve Cuden:
okay. All right. We’ll have to do that. All right. So last question for you today, Richie. You’ve given out huge amounts of advice throughout this whole show about doing what you do for anyone that might be interested in doing what you do for sure. And those that might be interested in it just to understand it. What’s the best piece of advice that you can give to someone who’s maybe starting out or maybe they’re in a tiny bit, but trying to figure out how to get to the next level?

Richie McGinniss:
Well, I think like we were talking about earlier about knowing what your role is in a situation. A lot of the kids that I hired in media, especially the younger ones, they think that everybody wants to know their opinion on every topic under the sun. And everybody, think in this day and age wants to give like their hot take. And it’s more about the response that you elicit than the actual truth of the matter or any kind of, you know, like asking yourself, what is it that’s my job here? And so I always would tell these kids like, stay in your lane. Like in the protests, our lane was to record the footage and put it up without commentary. They were wearing this, they said that because that was our lane. And it was a lane that was pretty much unoccupied during that time period. So I think, you know, more so than just like telling the whole world what you think about everything.

you know, especially, you know, when I was serving coffee to Rev Al Sharpton, when I was a production assistant at NBC, like my job was to serve those, serve that coffee. Actually he had tea and toast, but that tea had to be hot and the toast had to be well toasted. And that was my job. And I did it with a smile on my face, not cause I liked it, but because I was getting paid 12 bucks an hour, but I was, I was surrounded by all these professionals. And I guess to close that thought is,

you know, especially when you’re younger, it’s not about what you’re doing so much as what you’re learning. So I wasn’t doing something that was glamorous, but I was surrounded by the best professionals in the business and I learned a

Steve Cuden:
Well, I love hearing that advice because there’s a lot of truth to the notion of if you’re going to do a job and someone is expecting you to do that job, doesn’t matter how small or unimportant it may seem, you do it to the very best of your ability.

Richie McGinniss:
Exactly. And I get all these, again, with the kids, like they’re like, how’s my work life balance at this job? Is it remote? And I’m like, I got out of college and I turned down 10 times the salary to, to translate Arabic. I turned that down to serve coffee for 12 bucks an hour. And you know what I did? I got a bartending job because I couldn’t afford rent if I didn’t. So I don’t know. I, know, I think, especially when you’re young, it’s like, take your licks when you can.

Steve Cude:
Well, you’ve got to figure out what it is you really want to do, and if you’re willing to go through whatever the machinations of getting there are, and sometimes it’s hard and difficult.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah. Yeah, and sometimes you gotta learn what you don’t wanna do in order to learn what you do wanna do.

Steve Cuden:
great, great advice. That’s true. You’ve got to sometimes go through it to figure out whether you want it or not. That is for sure. What what what are you off to next? Do you have a riot in plan?

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah, exactly. I’ve been covering a bunch of the protests in DC. I’m in DC. I am gonna try not to get myself into any more trouble. I do have the second book that I’m finishing. And then I have a couple other book projects. I have this publishing company that I started. So I do like writing. Eventually I’ll combine the video with the writing and I’ll get a channel going, YouTube or something like that. But you know, I think they go hand in hand as well because writing is…

like a movie in written form. And storytelling is storytelling, whether it’s on video or whatever the medium is.

Steve Cuden:
That is for sure storytelling is storytelling. It is how we communicate. Richie McGinnis, this has been an absolutely fantastic hour plus on Story Beat today. And I can’t thank you enough for your time, your great interest in the world itself, and for your energy in sharing that with us today.

Richie McGinniss:
Yeah. Thanks for having me, Steve. It was a great interview. I wish that everybody in the press was as insightful as you.

Steve Cuden:
Well, I thank you and I think everybody should go out and get a copy of Riot Diet and check this out. I assume you agree.

Richie McGinniss:
I agree. the diapers don’t buy themselves. So go get a copy.