AP reporter Michelle Smith joins Cheddar News to discuss her latest documentary on Michael Flynn, his entanglement with conspiracy theories, and more. 

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Michelle Smith On Her Explosive Michael Flynn Documentary

Midterms are right around the corner and with the U. S. That's more divided than ever, every vote counts. A new documentary by the Associated Press and frontline investigates for President trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn and his lasting influence on the far right here to join us to tell us more as ap correspondent, Michelle smith, Thank you so much for joining us, Michelle. Of course we're gonna jump right into it how this investigation stop and why focus in on Michael Flynn. His personal visibility has really gone up since january 6th and he's using that and within the movement, he's got a lot of credibility because he is a retired three star general. He was the National security advisor, the first one for President trump. And so he's using that to pull people in and walk us through his background there. You kind of mentioned a couple of things. He returns from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and soon declares that there is a quote spiritual war in America. What's the significance of this and why do you think that it just caught on so easily? Well, um this idea of spiritual war, he brings it up at many of his appearances. It's the idea that there is a battle between good versus evil in this country and that joined with this idea of christian nationalism um you know, has kind of caught on and he's not the only one who says this. You know, the idea of a spiritual war has been around for a while but it has it is on the rise. Um We've documented it in in the film and um it's pulling in these other ideas like conspiracy theories and um like actual politics that and it's something that many experts that we talked to have said people should be very concerned about because it could be giving People the idea that violence is a way to achieve political ends. And in this documentary you have about 125 interviews with people who are just very closely connected to Flynn. You even have an interview with Flynn himself. Was it hard to get that access? It was hard. We talked to 100 25 field. It is the range of people, you know, not all of them were like there's a lot of critics but also experts in all kinds of things, but for Flynn, yes, it was, it was hard to get the interview um and we worked for a long time to get that interview. He finally did give us an interview in february of this year and it was a contentious interview, but I think it was worth doing. We wanted to hear from him directly, We wanted to ask him, do you consider yourself a christian nationalist and give him the opportunity to address questions like that? And did he consider himself one, was he was he open and honest or was he someone who was denying the fact that that or denying those labels? Well, he described himself as an irish catholic and he said that he didn't know what a christian nationalist was. Um but you know just speaking of interviews you know if he ever wants to talk to me again I'd be happy to talk to him and talk to him about that more. Um but yeah I mean it was it was an interesting interview for sure. And what would you say the rise of Flynn's influence means for the future of the Republican Party? To what extent has this far right ring become the mainstream of the GOP or at least part of it? Yeah. I think um one of the things that we wanted to address about Flynn is that He's often painted as a fringe figure but these ideas, this Christian nationalism that is not fringe anymore. Um there was a recent survey that found 61% of Republicans support declaring the US to be a Christian nation. So this is mainstream within the Republican Party. Ap correspondent, Michelle Smith, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me