IMARA JONES, HOST: It’s after 9pm on a school night, and I’m sitting in a school board meeting in Sarasota, Florida that’s been going on for three hours. Now this meeting has the regular tedium that you would expect like kids recognized for their academic and athletic achievements, and discussions about staff changes across the district. It’s pretty dull to be totally honest. But all is not what it seems. This is actually a community on edge. There are six armed police officers stationed around the room. Some are guarding the exits and others protecting the school board dais. Now I don’t know why all of this armed presence is needed but someone suddenly interrupts the meeting. [ARCHIVAL] BARBARA VAUGHAN: I've been here since five o'clock and I've filled out the thing out front. SCHOOL BOARD OFFICIAL: It’s a new system. AUDIENCE MEMBER: She’s a student Barbara VAUGHAN: Okay, so am I. How do you know? JONES: The guards suddenly become more tense, eyeing everyone in the room. But things settle down when the person shouting from the audience, Barbara Vaughn, has her turn to speak. [ARCHIVAL] VAUGHAN: I was required as part of my history class to read a book called None Dare Call It Treason. It was the primer at the time on communism, and the adults in our lives felt it was important that we understand what it was and how to defeat it. Sad to say, communism is alive and well. They slip in, creep in through our revered institutions, such as our Ivy League colleges, our federal civil servants. Even our legislators and even in our public schools, They disguise themselves with lofty sounding names like diversity and equity and inclusion and critical race theory. Doesn't that all sound wonderful, laudable for our children? That's how they fool us. JONES: As I look around the room, I sit and wonder, “how on earth did we get here?” JONES: I’m Imara Jones, and this is The Anti-Trans Hate Machine: A Plot Against Equality. There’s a group at the forefront of a movement that’s undermining public education from the inside out using anti-trans hate. It’s called Moms for Liberty. They got their start in Florida before spreading like wildfire across the country. And the group has completely transformed the conversation around schools. Alongside Moms for Liberty are paramilitary and political operatives who have access to the highest levels of government. And they believe that recognizing trans people is part of a treasonous conspiracy against America. I’m serious. This is actually what they say. Nowhere has this gotten more out of hand than Sarasota County Florida. So we went there, to ground zero for the anti-trans hate movement in schools. JONES: Sarasota is where swampy heartland meets idyllic coastline. It’s absolutely beautiful here with sunshine, sandy beaches, luxury homes, and wide open spaces. Liz Barker, her husband, and their children moved here about five years ago. We start chatting on their enclosed patio after walking through her home. But Florida is still Florida. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): I would never be thinking about lizards and mosquitoes, and then there are alligators. Alligators, yeah. So do you have manatees? Do you have alligators here? LIZ BARKER: Oh yeah, yeah, he's not out right now, usually he sits on that bank there. He's not going to come through the screen. JONES: Liz is tall and blond, with an infectious laugh, she spent most of her career as a school psychologist. As I look around, it seems as if the life that Liz has made for herself is almost out of a story book. But it didn’t start that way. You see she grew up as part of a strict Christian sect. As a kid she was schooled at home, and raised to believe that her only option in life was to conform to a very limited idea of what women could be. BARKER: Something about it never sat quite right with me, there was a lot of messaging that there was no place for me except for in the home as a wife and a mother. And that I should not pursue any sort of higher education, and that was never to have a job or a career. You know, my options were so limited. JONES: But some part of her wanted more and she knew that leaving home and going to public school would be essential for who she wanted to become. So, she pushed her parents, year after year, to allow her to attend a public school. BARKER: Then eventually in 10th grade I was like, listen, I'm getting on that bus, you know, so get on board, but I'm going to public schools. JONES: Taking that bus transported her to almost a completely different realm. The world started to become alive and eventually a counselor encouraged her to take advanced classes, and then to apply to college. BARKER: And I ended up graduating from that public high school as valedictorian which was really cool and I did go to college. So, really and truly, I would not be sitting here if it weren't for public schools and in particular, that school counselor who said, you know, absolutely not. You have a place in the world beyond just a wife and a mother. JONES: And Liz wants to make sure that her kids have the opportunity that she had to fight for. That’s actually why she and her family moved to Sarasota. The county’s public schools boast hands-on learning opportunities and a variety of AP courses. Clearly it’s a great place for your kids to get an education. But shortly after Liz and her family came to Sarasota, something started to shift. Liz began to recognize the closed-off mindset that she grew up with, at school board meetings. BARKER: So we had a lot of parents coming in talking about parental rights and what books they did and didn't want, and laws were changing quickly. JONES: And she saw how these changes rippled down to make her job as a mom harder. BARKER: Now I have to sign a permission slip so that my daughter, Emeline, can be called Emmy. In her classroom. I have to sign a permission slip for every novel that my 7th grader read. I had to get one permission slip notarized so she could go on the field trip. I mean — can someone show me which rights I now have that I didn't have before because I'm not feeling it? JONES: And from Liz’s perspective, things just kept going downhill from there. One day in 2022 her daughter came home from school with a revelation that awakened Liz’s worst fears. BARKER: And she said, Mom, I just helped my English teacher pack up our classroom library JONES: You see, the fights happening in the school board caused her daughter’s teacher to comply in advance by removing potentially controversial books. BARKER: And that's when it struck me. That my daughter was now going to have an experience like I would have had if I hadn't gone to public school, that she was not gonna have access to resources and different ways of thinking, and different people, and different ideas. JONES: She didn’t want her daughter to have the same experience as she did growing up. For her, removing books was the last straw. So she decided that it was time to act and run for the school board herself. However, given the nature of politics in Sarasota, her race turned nasty quickly. The forces opposed to her launched an effort to say that Liz was secretly trans. And it didn’t stop there. BARKER: During my campaign, they said that I mutilated children's genitals, that I was a man. I mean, there were all kinds of really nasty, unkind things that they put out about me. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): News to your husband. BARKER: News to my husband he was like wow this is shocking and my husband is an insurance agent and he would have people call him and say oh my gosh is your wife really like this horrible person and he was like not that I know of. Not to my knowledge. And my kids got some of that too of course at school. JONES: But these efforts don’t deter Liz. She forges ahead in her race because she knows that this was bigger than her immediate family. Liz understands that she’s up against one of the most potent right-wing, anti-public school organizations in the country: Moms for Liberty. Moms for Liberty is homegrown in Florida. Its cofounders are actually a group of school board members. One of them is Bridget Ziegler. She was appointed to the Sarasota school board by former Governor Rick Scott in 2014. Ziegler remains politically well-connected, in part thanks to her husband who’s a Republican Political operative. The Zieglers have close ties to Florida’s current Governor Ron Desantis. They’re political friends. And he says really nice things about her. [ARCHIVAL] GOVERNOR RON DESANTIS: You know like Bridget Ziegler, you should have people like her in every county in Florida. We gotta do a better job on these school board races. We gotta make sure the people that are elected are putting the students and the parents first JONES: Just a year and a half after Moms for Liberty’s Founding, Governor DeSantis signs the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill into law. It prohibits any mention of queerness in public schools. Bridget Ziegler even stands beside him at the signing and she campaigns for the governor too. [ARCHIVAL] BRIDGET ZIEGLER: Our governor has done a remarkable job of boldly standing up against the woke media. He's fired and made sure that he's ensured that the education of our children and the instruction is focused on the actual curriculum of reading, writing, and arithmetic and not gender ideology. JONES: With these right-wing bona fides, it’s no surprise that Moms for Liberty is a conservative organization with real power. I mean beyond local state politics, they’ve hosted people from the highest levels of the far-right, including President Trump, at their annual conference. [ARCHIVAL] PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: In school board races PTA meetings and town halls Across the Nation you have taught the radical left marxists and Communists a lesson they will never forget don't mess with America's moms JONES: With national visibility comes national dollars. Moms for Liberty gets the support of powerful right wing funders like far-right billionaire philanthropist Julie Fancelli, heir of the Publix supermarket fortune. She helped finance the January 6th rally. Moms for Liberty also catches the eye of the Heritage Foundation—the influential national policy-arm of the Anti-Trans Hate Machine we investigated all the way back in Season 1. Heritage awards Moms for Liberty with 25,000 dollars for “embodying the virtues of America’s Founding.” While 25 thousand dollars may not be a lot in their world, what’s important here is that Heritage is signalling its support for Moms for Liberty. Essentially they’re telling people in their network to get behind the organization. This backing allows the group to rapidly spread across the country. In 2024, Moms For Liberty says they had over 300 chapters nationwide. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Moms for Liberty is an anti-government extremists group. Maya Henson Carey is a researcher with the SPLC and says Moms for Liberty’s current attacks on inclusive gender policies are emblematic of the group’s larger political goals: MAYA HENSON CAREY: To them, I think the parental rights movement entails being able to control what their children learn and are exposed to in schools. If you're saying, I don' want my child to have access to gender queer in the library, then that means that no other student has access to gender queer in a library. JONES: And Maya says this isn’t a new strategy. HENSON CAREY: It's very similar to me to what happened after Brown v. The Board of Education, when all of these white citizens councils and other mom groups came about and they started spreading this propaganda. Like, do you want your kids in school with black men that are gonna corrupt your virgin white daughters, and now it's trans. You know, do you want your kids in schools with these trans kids that are going to corrupt your kids with these groomers? It's very similar rhetoric. JONES: And just like with racist white moms after Brown vs Board of Education, the use of LGBTQ issues to attack schools is meant to undermine support for public education and is inherently political. But the pursuit of these broader goals fractures local communities which had a broad consensus about education before Moms4Liberty. And these local face offs quickly become nasty amongst people who know each other. School board meetings, led by Ziegler, turn into battle zones. JONES: Tom Edwards is one of Bridget Ziegler’s colleagues on the board. He has experienced up close the extent to which she is willing to weaponize extremist views in order to further her goals. Tom moved to Sarasota after a successful business career. As an out gay man who was an activist during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, Tom wanted to give back to his new community. Not knowing what to do, Tom began thinking about what contributed most to his prosperity. TOM EDWARDS: The thing that I'm very lucky about is I'm I'm a product of public education JONES: So running for the school board seemed a natural choice for him. He won in 2020 and joined just as the COVID pandemic was nearing its peak. It was a challenging time to be a school board member for sure. An influx of angry citizens, led by Moms for Liberty, began to show up especially as school boards began considering mandatory vaccinations. EDWARDS: Sitting next to me was Bridget Ziegler, who was the co-founder of Moms for Liberty and in the back pocket of our governor. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): So in your very first meeting, you're seated next to her. Yes. And what was that like? EDWARDS: Um, I will tell you it was, um, I wasn't prepared for the kind of public comments and ridicule and name-calling and homophobia and racial bias that we experienced for the first two years I was on the board. JONES: For over a year the Sarasota school board meetings dissolved further into chaos. [ARCHIVAL] SCHOOL BOARD OFFICIAL: I'm Sorry Order, it's been decided. We're going to take a five minute recess in order to get the order back. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I don't need a microphone to pray for this. Begotten Bored! OFFICIAL: There is no place in the agenda where it says the public can start yelling at the board and interrupting a meeting. JONES: But the worst of it for Tom is yet to come. In the middle of all this turmoil, Tom is called a groomer and starts getting death threats on a regular basis. One day though in 2023 it all erupts in the Sarasota School Board chamber. During a tense public meeting, the accusations and threats are repeated to Tom’s face in front of his colleagues. EDWARDS: And this person was insinuating that I was going in there to groom these children because I was a pedophile. And I was sitting next to Bridget at the time and I leaned over and said, you've got to shut this down. This is really horrible. And she said, no, I'm not going to do that because we have freedom of speech here in this country. JONES: It made sense for Tom to ask Bridget to bring the temperature down. She was a key orchestrator of the anger which had been unleashed locally. And she’s moderating the meeting. But Bridget did not act, and Tom knew that he had to take matters into his own hands. He walks out. EDWARDS: I knew that if I got up and walked out that it would shut down the meeting, which was really my first intention was to stop the hate rhetoric stop the escalation of the hatred. Because I was fearful that the next thing you know, someone's carrying an AR-15 and shooting up a bunch of people. JONES: What Tom is saying isn’t completely outrageous. The threat of paramilitary violence here is real. LISA SCHURR: We had all of these people – the Proud Boys and their ilk, if you will. Showing up at school board meetings. And... Just, you know, screaming and shouting and. I have a young friend. Who was spat upon. By these people. JONES: That’s Lisa Schurr. She is a retiree in Sarasota who starts to hear about what was happening at school board meetings and decides to go see for herself. She’s appalled by what she sees. SCHURR: How they treated. The queer and trans community is... Abhorrent for lack of a better word. JONES: Within months, Lisa realizes that citizens who want a different vision from Moms for Liberty and the Proud Boys must come together. She helps form a group called Support Our Schools or S.O.S.. They create a coalition with local youth groups to stop the attacks on schools. SOS and their partners set a huge task for themselves: unseat Bridget Ziegler and other Moms for Liberty candidates from the board. As part of that effort, they get behind the candidacy of a local parent, Lauren Kurnov. In response, a local far right political action committee runs a vicious billboard against her. It has the words “baby killer” and “liar” next to her face. Lauren loses her race and Moms for Liberty candidates sweep the school board. To learn more about why the ad came about I reached out to the person behind it – Conni Bruni. She is currently the Chairwoman of the local Moms for Liberty chapter in Sarasota. CONNI BRUNI: I said terrible things about Lauren Kernhoff. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): Why? BRUNI: They were true. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): What, like what? BRUNI: She's a baby killer. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): What makes her a baby killer? BRUNI: She worked at Planned Parenthood and she was proud of it and chose to hide it on her resume. JONES: I had this conversation with Conni at a local Sarasota Public Library. She comes with a sunny disposition decked out in red white and blue. BRUNI: My hair's okay? Everything's looking good. Everything's looking good. JONES: What's amazing is that it's like, what do you call it? It's audio. No, you could have come in in a sweatsuit. In a sweatsuit, it would have been totally fine. JONES: She comes off as completely ordinary, even friendly— like the type of person who would hold your spot in line at the grocery store, as you dashed off to get the forgotten jar of mayonnaise. Clearly though there’s another side to her. And as we saw with the “baby killer” ad, Connie doesn’t mind going low. But just how low I wasn’t sure. So I asked her about Tom Edwards, you know the gay Sarasota School board member who received death threats because he was painted as a groomer. With hindsight was she willing to agree with the accusations that could have led to violence? JONES (IN INTERVIEW): How did we get to the point where people were calling, that Moms for Liberty is calling in his re-election, Tom Edwards, calling him a groomer, right? BRUNI: Mom's for Liberty did not do that. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): No one from Moms for Liberty ever called him a groomer? BRUNI: there were definitely people who probably had or are a part of Moms for Liberty that consider Mr. Edwards to be a groomer. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): Are you one of them? BRUNI: I might. JONES: Even now Conni isn’t willing to disavow the violent rhetoric about Tom. And it dawns on me that something else must be going on here. Because only fearful people are willing to harm others first. So I kept probing. Finally Conni brings up a conspiracy theory which anchors her world view. She calls it the globalist agenda. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): from your perspective, what is the globalist agenda? BRUNI: You can boil it down and any issue we talk about it'll come back ultimately to the same thing the globalist agenda is That there is no need for family. There is no needs for church business anything the government is your family The government is your answer to everything JONES: She says Moms for Liberty is pushing against these “globalists” who are trying to take over. BRUNI:It's a push back to we don't co-parent our children with the government. We don't. That is the crux of Moms For Liberty. JONES: Now globalism is an enduring conspiracy theory from the early 1900s which says that a shadowy combination of business, communist and jewish elites are trying to control the world. Belief in globalism drove fascists around the world in the run up to World War II. For Conni the so-called parents rights movement is essential to stopping the “globalist agenda.” Connie feels like she needs to control globalists before they exert their control over her. BRUNI This is something that's been going on probably since we... Became as humans. We all, everybody, Cain and Abel, for goodness sake, everybody wants to control each other. Do they? Yeah. It's almost. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): Do you think that I want to control you? BRUNI: It's almost human nature. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): Do you think I would want to control you? BRUNI: In some ways, yes. Why? Because it's human nature. It is innate to us. We are, by nature, sinful. It just is what it is. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): So by extension, what you're saying is you want to control other people. BRUNI: In my own way, of course. JONES: But how did Conni, a successful business person from California who settled in Florida, come to believe in the globalist conspiracy? It’s not a mainstream belief system. During our interview, it occurred to me that what Conni was saying echoed another Sarasota resident. Lt. General Michael Flynn. Now Flynn is Connie’s friend and neighbor. His name might sound familiar to you because he served as national security advisor during the first Trump administration. And Flynn remains part of Trump’s orbit. So I decided to ask Conni if Flynn had any particular insights into who was behind the globalist agenda, the ideology that was driving otherwise ordinary people to extremes. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): Have you spoken to General Flynn about, does he share your globalist views, anti-globalist Yes. So he believes that there is a globalist. Yes. Has he ever told you who he thinks is behind the globalist conspiracy? BRUNI: I'm sure he knows. No, he has not told me. JONES: But Flynn’s interest is not just in wide-ranging conspiracies. He has taken an interest in affairs that are hyperlocal. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): Why do you think General Flynn cares so much about schools in Sarasota? BRUNI: Not just schools, at every level of government. You've got to have people involved who give a darn, who embrace these concepts, who understand what the implications can be JONES: Former Lt. General Michael Flynn spent more than three decades in the United States military. He served in a series of conflicts over the years but eventually found himself as the head of Intelligence for the Joint Special Operations Command during the Iraq War. Now this might sound as if he was reviewing a bunch of data all day at headquarters but the exact opposite is true. You see, the Joint Special Operations Command is actually the home for all US special forces like you have heard about in the movies, such as the Navy Seals or the Delta Force. And Flynn’s job was to coordinate their activities in order to determine which “high value targets” should be eliminated. [ARCHIVAL] GENERAL MIKE FLYNN: This enemy must be opposed, they must be killed, they must be destroyed and the associated extremist form of the islamic ideology must be destroyed wherever it rears its ugly head JONES: When Flynn took on this new role, he was credited with bringing order to a chaotic process. His efforts are why many of his former colleagues say that he was “the best intelligence officer of his generation.” But according to a soldier and journalist who spoke to PBS’s Frontline, after a while this aggressive approach led to abuses, including the killing of innocent Iraqis who had nothing to do with the insurgency. His long time battling in Iraq and Afghanistan convinced him that the United States was in a wider global war against a series of enemies. Upon leaving the military, after serving as the Director of Military Intelligence at the Pentagon, he found his way into the inner circle of Donald Trump and eventually became his National Security Advisor. He lost his post almost immediately following revelations that he misled the Trump administration about conversations he had with the Russian ambassador that could make him vulnerable to blackmail. [ARCHIVAL] NEWS CLIP: We begin with a major shakeup inside the Trump White House. National Security Advisor Michael Flynn forced to resign after what the administration is calling an erosion of trust. But Flynn’s political career was only getting started. Flynn played a significant role in spreading conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. These conspiracy theories propagated by leaders on the right led to the January 6th insurrection. Here’s Flynn speaking in DC the night before Proud Boys and other paramilitary groups stormed the Capitol on that day. [ARCHIVAL] FLYNN: The members of Congress, the members of the House of Representatives, the members of of the United States Senate, those of those of you who are feeling weak tonight, those if you that don't have the moral fiber in your body, get some tonight because tomorrow we the people are going to be here and we want you to know that we will not stand for a lie. We will not stand for a lie. JONES: Flynn has remained tight-lipped about his involvement in the insurrection. According to the January 6th Committee, a lawyer for a paramilitary group called the Oathkeepers claimed that Flynn was “the puppet handler for everything." After the insurrection though, Flynn moves to Sarasota, Florida. And he starts pushing a new nationwide strategy for far right extremists to go local. He spoke about it in an interview with a conservative outlet called The Western Journal. [ARCHIVAL] FLYNN: I want to be people courageous about what they're doing in their own communities, I want the people to get in there and engage their local. Level school boards, right, or their local politicians the kinds of things that we are having taken away from us. JONES: And Flynn works to be the change he’s hoping to see. Since moving to Sarasota, he’s funnelled money into far-right organizing spaces. He also starts leading an effort across the country to activate tens of thousands followers in a war against the forces he says are trying to take over America. [ARCHIVAL] FLYNN: We’re in the midst of a war right now. This war is very very real. It’s your responsibility to stand up. JONES: For Flynn, schools are a critical battleground in this war. [ARCHIVAL] FLYNN: Local action equals a national impact. We cannot leave it up to one. We have a citizens responsibility to get involved in our local communities, in our churches, in our families, get involved JONES: We reached out to Lt General Michael Flynn through several channels but we never heard back. But I really wanted to understand the connections he was making between a global struggle and trans polices made by school boards. So I decided to reach out to someone who spent years working for and traveling the country with Michael Flynn to help me sort it out. JONES: Vic Mellor is one of the people closest to Flynn and he was his unofficial chief of staff. Vic and I sit down for a remote video conversation. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): You were in Washington on January 6th, I think you mentioned that you were at the Capitol but didn't breach the Capitol. VIC MELLOR: Well, so that, so I'll give you an exclusive right here right now. JONES (IN INTERVIEW):Do it. MELLOR: So that was on the advice of my lawyer. So no, I 100% went into capital. And I wore this shirt right here, because this is the shirt I was wearing when I was at January 6. JONES: He points to his shirt. It has the letters S-F-M-F. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): What does that mean? What is SFMF? MELLOR: It's a Marine Corps shirt. It says Semper Fi, mother. You can just... Okay, all right. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): Understood, understood. JONES: Full translation? Always faithful, mother -fucker. Vic is an influential player in Sarasota. But he wasn’t always. Before storming the Capitol and cozying up to Michael Flynn, Vic started his own concrete business in Florida—and he says it’s one of the biggest in the state. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): you could have coasted your entire life being successful being wealthy and then retiring and living off of that, you could've coasted along. What made you decide to get interested In local politics and in the school board and other things. Like how does that transition happen? MELLOR: So yes, I could be doing other things right now. But I choose to do this because this is what's important. I firmly believe that we're in a transition phase in our country and that every... I have committed every resource I got to what's going on in our county right now. JONES: Vic devotes his wealth to creating a far right recreation and organizing space called The Hollow. But he says that it’s actually a place for kids. MELLOR: So I had this piece of property, it's got rifle ranges and pistol ranges. I'm a die-hard Second Amendment guy. And I said, you know what I'm gonna do? This is what I can do as an individual. I am going to create. A camp for kids, teach them gun safety, make them proficient in them guns, and while they're here, let them get a taste of the Constitution. JONES: But The Hollow is not only place where America’s future can learn about guns and country. It is also a place where like-minded adults and organizations in Sarasota can gather. Events are held there such as a fundraiser for Moms for Liberty Founder Bridget Ziegler and the other right-wing candidates for the Sarasota school board. And helping to organize this fundraiser were members of the Proud Boys. In fact Proud Boys members have been to The Hollow on several occasions. But Vic says that The Hollow has nothing to do with this paramilitary organization. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): You're like, the Hollow is a place for kids, but yet you regularly have people who are a part of, for example, the Proud Boys who meet regularly at the Hollow, Do you think that that's appropriate for a place that is a part of its founding, a focus on kids. MELLOR: I just want to clarify the whole Proud Boy thing. They paint this picture like the Proud Boys own it, and their flag is flying above my American flag. Zero chance of that. Zero chance JONES (IN INTERVIEW):Whether or not it is a specific gathering place for a specific named Proud Boy event, there seemed to be a lot of Proud boy affiliation and interest and association with The Hollow. MELLOR: You've got to be careful with “a lot.” JONES (IN INTERVIEW):Okay, what should I be careful about? MELLOR: Well, you're insinuating like they hang out there every day, and they do not. So let's just be clear on something about the Proud Boys.Like you'd think the Proud Boys are some kind of militaristic group. To me they are a bunch of dads who like to drink. They have zero organization, they have zero militaristic training, they're just a bunch of dads that show up and some of them have done some stupid things. JONES: The idea that the Proud Boys is just a rowdy drinking club for dads is part of the group’s propaganda that we debunked last season of this show. However, much like the Proud Boys, Vic gets particularly animated about the issue of gender identity in schools. MELLOR: I am against the whole transitioning thing in the school level, 100%. What am I supposed to do? Just let this be just spewed out to the kids without fighting it? So we have to fight it on multiple levels and we are right now. We — I have zero issues with you and what you do. None. You can do whatever you want to do. If you want to have a rally at the Hollow, you are 100% welcome to do it. Okay? And I swear, you can if you want. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): On the one hand, you invited me to the hollow, and then on the other said that, you know that I was pushing you know, transgenderism in schools. MELLOR: And you shouldn't! I don't push my sexuality in schools, why are you pushing yours? JONES (IN INTERVIEW): Yes, I think just to answer your question I think that the answer is that heterosexuality is pushed in schools. I think it's pushed in school as being the default norm for people. And as you say, anything that is not in that, or the gender binary as well is a mental disorder. And so I think that that's the issue. And so, I think all that's happening, right, is an acknowledgement. If you talk to teachers about these books, is that they're just different types of people in the world and you're just teaching kids that they exist. MELLOR: Sure, yeah. We'll just, let's just start putting blowj*bs on billboards. You know, why just do it in schools? JONES: Vic clearly feels strongly about this. It seems like there’s something more here than just being against trans people. And it turns out that there is. He believes that gender identity is part of a larger war for the future of America. MELLOR: If it wasn't in the schools, then I wouldn't give a shit. They are pushing it everywhere, okay, but to me it's a weapon of, it's one of the weapons of war that we're in, it is a distraction. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): Right, so if it is a weapon of war, then it has to be, from your perspective, a part of their campaign to undermine America. MELLOR: Yeah, it is. Well, of course it is, JONES: This clearly echoes elements of the globalist conspiracy theory. The one that says foreign actors are trying to take over America. MELLOR: I 100 percent believe that there is foreign interest. As far as the communist state taken over aspects of our government, which is proven already. So yes, there is a domestic war machine against the American people. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): who are the foreign actors that are driving this that you think? MELLOR: Well, it's obviously where you've got your elite class out of Europe and you've got your communists out of China. JONES: If you follow the logic here, then the conclusion is that trans-people are being used as tools by the nation’s foreign enemies to sabotage the country. And THIS is why many conspiracy theorists are SO focused on stopping students from learning about the existence of trans people. They believe it’s an effort to recruit children into the globalist agenda against America. Every school board race is a battle. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): You mentioned that it's a war. Do you believe that it is a, [00:15:19][10.4] what kind of war? Is it a hot war? Do you think that this is going to become an armed struggle inside of the country? Or do you believe it that it already? Or do think that it mostly political in nature? Like, the use of the term domestic war that you said is very strong, so I'm just wondering what are the contours of the war? MELLOR: We are battling in the streets, just not in your, you know, TV mode of civil war. But do I think it'll ever get there? I mean, I hope not. I truly hope not, but you think it could. Do I think you could? Yeah. Oh, um. Well, I mean, of course. I mean that's always in the realm of possibilities, Um so we'll see. The next six months will be very critical JONES: Now Vic and I had this exchange in June of 2025. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): Like what's crucial about the next six months in the future of the country? MELLOR: You know, amped up riots in the streets. So as more pressure is put on the apparatus in DC, they're going to have to kick back and push back in certain ways. And we already know that they have no problem burning down cities. So that'll be coming up again amongst other aspects of domestic terrorism JONES (IN INTERVIEW): Do you think that it sounds like you think we're going to be in a position where we have to declare martial law at some point? MELLOR: I mean, I hope not. I hope they just go away. I don’t think they will JONES (IN INTERVIEW): Right, but if they don't go away, you see that that could be a possibility over the next six months. MELLOR: Oh, of course. END JONES: My conversations with people in Sarasota revealed so much of what is going wrong in America right now. Right-wing extremists,who have adopted outlandish conspiracy theories, are trying to capture our government at every level. And many of them believe they’re fighting a war for the heart and soul of our country. They’re willing to do whatever it takes. But there are people working day and night to stop them. People like Liz Barker. In Sarasota she continues her door-to-door effort to convince her neighbors that they need to choose an alternative vision of the future. A future where everyone’s humanity is acknowledged by the schools that they attend, and the communities that they call home. BARKER: When I was knocking doors you know you get this tall blonde lady who says she has four kids and they say oh I don't think I don't think you're at the right door. I say are you moms for liberty? I said no no no I'm not moms for Liberty I'm the opposite. I'm moms for libraries. JONES: Her optimism and being a “moms for libraries” alternative pays off. In 2024 Liz wins her race and it is part of a national trend. In fact Moms for Liberty candidates across the country lose more seats than they win. This reverses what happened just two years prior in 2022. BARKER: We were hearing about parental rights all the time. But we don't actually have a parent who sends their kids to public school on our school board. So if you really believe in parental rights, then you've gotta put a parent on the school board. And I think that resonated with folks. And the other messaging that I had was just community over chaos. We can disagree on all kinds of really fundamental things, but when it comes to our kids and it comes education, there's plenty that we can agree on and we can move forward with JONES: But more than just one person, this is actually about all of us because public education is the last place where the nation gathers in a common experience. And according to Liz that’s why it’s worth fighting for even if the process can be frustrating, or downright painful. BARKER: This is my home, this is my family's home. We love it here and I'm not gonna be bullied out of my home if you. Want something to change, you just have to be willing to stand up and have those hard conversations and understand that you're not always going to win the argument, you're not always gonna make a difference, but you planted a seed, and you know, you keep going. JONES: The good news is that there are so many people across America who believe in education for all that are doing just that: keeping on. [music] JONES: But while Moms for Liberty’s influence as an organization may be waning, the full extent of their impact is just starting to come into focus. There’s an agenda far greater and more ambitious than limiting what information kids might have access to. The ultimate goal came up in my conversation with Conni Brunni. The head of the Sarasota Moms for Liberty chapter and friend of Lt. General Michael Flynn. BRUNI: if the schools don't fit a family, you withdraw them, and you school them at home or in an alternative setting. You don't have to go to a government school. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): Well, the logical extension of this is to not have, Why have public education at all? BRUNI: And I understand and there there's that's a slippery slope and that's affairs statement. That's a fair question. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): But that's a slope that you seem to be easing people onto, because if your response is you don't have to go to a government school, if that's the case, if we are not interested in providing public education that's open to all kids and all families, then why should we have public education at all? BRUNI: That's a fair question. JONES (IN INTERVIEW): And what's your answer to the question? BRUNI: I would say no, JONES: Next time on the Anti-Trans Hate Machine we investigate how the ultimate goal of school board chaos across the country is to destroy public education. With right-wing interests pushing universal school vouchers, our country’s last remaining public good and a central pillar of democracy is under serious threat.