Unprecedented, which was released this week on Discovery+, examines the final months of Donald Trump’s presidency, featuring shocking footage of the January 6th attack on the Capitol and interviews with Trump and his inner circle in the wake of the riot.
I spoke to Alex Holder, the British filmmaker behind the documentary series, for this week’s episode of The Interview.
Raw footage from the documentary was subpoenaed and featured prominently in the House Select Committee hearings on the attack.
We discussed the hearings, how he gained such incredible access to the Trump White House, and what he learned about Trump, his family, and his inner circle after spending two years in their world.
The three-part series focuses heavily on Trump and his three adult children. Most notable in the documentary is the refusal — which Holder calls telling — from Trump’s children to talk about January 6.
“Everything they said to me always echoed their father’s position,” Holder said. “There was never really any dissent. What was really interesting was the fact that they didn’
Trump himself spoke defensively of the rioters, insisting that their frustrations about the election — frustrations based on a lie he invented and stoked in the months after the 2020 election — were legitimate.
I asked what he thought Trump’s adult children actually thought of the riot. In private text messages released by the January 6 committee, Donald Trump Jr. urged Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows to convince his father to condemn the rioters during the attack.
Publicly, however, the children have been quiet on the events of January 6, and have continued to push the myth that the 2020 election was stolen.
“Ultimately what’s important in this family is the brand and the name Trump,” Holder said. “The kids need to defend that at all costs. It’s all about the brand. The presidency, democracy, ransacking the United States Capitol — these things are all secondary to the most important thing, which is the brand, which is the family name, essentially, and keeping, at least in this case, their father in power.”
As for whether the kids actually think the election was stolen, Eric Trump is a true believer, Holder said.
He recalled Eric insisting that Trump won the election because he had more people at his rallies than Joe Biden.
“Obviously, the Biden campaign didn’t have that many rallies because of Covid, but even if
“It’s incoherent. And he got very angry while he was talking about it,” Holder added. In the documentary, Eric said he will “never” accept his father’s loss.
Ivanka Trump, on the other hand, has backed away from stolen election claims in the year since the attack. She recently told congressional investigators that she did not believe her father’s false claims, sworn testimony that earned her a rebuke from her father.
But in an interview with Holder in December 2020, she backed his stolen election crusade. She would also go on to speak at the Stop the Steal rally that preceded the attack on Jan. 6.
Holder also shot down claims from Trump allies that they were told they would have editorial control over the final cut of the documentary, or that it would be a flattering portrayal of the administration.
“I made it very clear from the start that there would be no scenario where I wouldn’t have full editorial control over the entire project,” he said.
As for why Trump and his family participated in the documentary, Holder blames hubris.
“I think the reason they did it was because they were very, very convinced that they were going to win the election,” he said.
Unprecedented is based on footage from the campaign and
Notably, Holder declined to challenge Trump and his family on their obviously false claims about the election. I asked why.
“I was documenting history,” he explained. “I’m not there to change minds or to be prosecutorial or to debate. I’m there to ask questions and hear answers. And if the answers are insane and incredibly dangerous, that’s really very important for people to know and to learn.”
Still, he said hearing such obviously deranged claims from a president inside the White House, while the Secret Service and the nuclear football hover feet away, is unnerving.
“It’s terrifying to not be able to debate with a person,” he said. “You can’t persuade a person, especially the President of the United States of America.”
“You’re dealing with somebody who is saying that the sky is green.”
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