Jackson Reffitt claims he does not regret turning in his J6 dad after story becomes basis for off-Broadway play 'Fatherland'

Jackson Reffitt turned in his father to the FBI over the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riot and told MSNBC on Monday that he doesn’t “regret it.” Now, there's an off-Broadway play in production based on his saga. The play, called Fatherland, uses exact words to heighten the storytelling. The story follows father Guy Wesley Reffitt and his son who was 18-years-old at the time he turned him in. He was 19 when he testified against his father.

Reffitt told MSNBC that he was growing wary of his father, Guy Reffitt, before the riot. “Well, the tip actually came in from before January 6, my dad was getting way more radicalized as time went on, following Trump and isolating himself more and more, and it was terrifying,” Reffitt told the outlet. The play was conceived of and directed by LA-based Fountain Theater by director Stephen Sachs. 

When asked “what were some of the signs” of his father being “radicalized,” the son responded, “You know, he's watching all sorts of media that was terrifying. He isolated himself to online groups that were far-right radical, and he was growing more and more violent, not to just the family, but to the people around him. And it scared me.” The New York Times says that Fatherland is "about the profound grief of no longer recognizing a parent you love, or a child you raised."

The MSNBC host asked when Jackson Reffitt realized his father was at the event and he “had to act further.” Reffitt responded, “It was while they were pointing guns at the doors of the house, you saw him there. He was texting my mom and FaceTiming her and it was delusional.”

“And did you have any hesitation about going further? I mean, he is your father,” the host continued. “It was the hardest decision I've ever made, and it continues to haunt me to this day. But you know, I don't regret it, and I still feel for him and my family." The play uses text from the 2022 trial as well as other sources in which the Reffitt's spoke about the case. It goes back and forth between the younger Reffitt's testimony in the trial and the events that led up to it.

The Times writes that the play tackles "love and hate" and "loyalty and bravery," going on to say that "Those words mean starkly different things to the father, a gun-toting Trump devotee and militiaman who wears a bulletproof vest around the house, and his gentle son, whose politics are much further left. The son worries about the danger his father poses to himself and others, and what betraying him will do to their family."

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz recently admitted to Congress that he could not deny that FBI spies were present in the crowd during the J6 protest. The presence of security at the J6 protest continues to divide Republicans and Democrats. Trump has been blamed for personally inciting the riot, but prior to the day, he had called for the National Guard to be ready for action. Pentagon officials reportedly delayed bringing the National Guard to the Capitol building over concerns about “optics.”