How an anti-vaxxer was radicalized into a 'Proud Boys friend' and then a Trump insurrectionist

Sarah K. Burris
January 03, 2022


Speaking to MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Monday, reporter Brandy Zadrozny described her team's efforts in following white supremacists, militia groups and other extremists for the year after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

One of the things that she noticed is that people angry about Jan. 6 went from obsessing over Trump's "Big Lie" to working on culture war issues like, "critical race theory."

Zadrozny mentioned Denise Aguilar, a vocal California vaccine conspiracy theorist and founder of a survivalist group who ultimately became radicalized by Donald Trump to attack the U.S. Capitol.

READ MORE: 'You don't really believe that': CNN reporter stunned by Trump supporters' Jan. 6th conspiracy theories

"I have been reporting on the anti-vaccination movement for about a decade, so I've known Denise Aguilar, who is an activist out of California, for years now," said Zadrozny. "She's always been an anti-vaxxer for the last -- when California was putting in place laws to get rid of school exemptions, she was very vocal, and you could see her progression through 2020. A person who was an anti-vaxxer became a sort of Proud Boy's friend. She was detained at the California state capitol, and then she ended up going to the Capitol on Jan. 6. She spoke at a Health Freedom stage and then, according to her own selfie, she was at the Capitol, and she stormed -- she said, 'we stormed the Capitol.' She said she was sprayed with bear mace. She came home, and she started an all-women's militia."

Aguilar is now posting photos of herself with what appears to be her co-militia mates holding very large weapons. Her Telegram channel has become "just a spiral down into extremism, and so we watched this happen in real-time," said Zadrozny.

She told Zadrozny that their efforts are all about local politics now and they're not focusing on national politics.

Watch the full report below: