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To read more about Episode 240, visit the main episode page. 

Michael Moore [00:00:15] Hello. This is Rumble with the Michael Moore. I’m Michael Moore and welcome, everyone. It’s been another one of those weeks. I picked up The New York Times today. And yes, I know I still read the print version just because nothing would hit me stronger than looking at the print version of it this morning, where the entire front page, it just says “One Million Dead.” And then there’s a graphic. We’ve reached now the 1 million mark for those in this country that have died of COVID, over 6 million worldwide. It’s really something. And we’re not going to talk about that today. But I thought maybe just a moment to remember the 1 million here, the 6 million worldwide dead. Maybe you knew one of them or you knew of them. So I just thought we’d just take a just a brief moment here to pause and keep them in our thoughts and in our actions from this moment forward. 

Michael Moore [00:01:37] Yesterday, there were over 400 demonstrations across the country for people taking to the streets all over the United States to demand that women in this country be treated as first-class citizens with the same exact rights that men have. It was powerful to see the images, the video, just the pouring out of all kinds of people into the streets across this country against what the Supreme Court is planning to do, taking away the the the rights of an entire gender, the majority gender. This is coming now, any week now, because we know this now due to the leak that Politico reported. And people aren’t having any of it — that’s really the bottom line of this. Millions and millions of people across the country want it to be known that the vast majority of this country, 70% of this country, supports Roe v Wade, supports legal abortion, and won’t have it any other way. Only 27% of the country supports overturning Roe v Wade. You know even yesterday when they reported on some of the news I saw, they said “both sides took to the streets.” No, both sides didn’t take to the streets. It was people standing up for women and their rights. That’s who was in the streets. And yes, there were little tiny counter demonstrations at many of these with these anti-abortion people, people who believe a human being is a fertilized egg. Yes. A few of them showed up. But when they say “both sides,” they make it sound like, “well, on one hand, there’s those who believe that a fertilized egg is a human being, and this is a mortal sin and you should be, you know, sent to prison for life if you have an abortion. And then on the other side, well, there’s all those pro-abortion people.” Somebody said that on the news yesterday and I thought, “yeah, let’s just start saying that. Let’s just say “pro-abortion” — not pro-abortion, like, oh, wait, I just woke up, I can’t wait to go get my abortion today. Of course, no man will ever have to say that.” But, yes, pro — we’re pro-medicine. That’s who we are. 70% of the country is vaccinated and boosted. That’s who we are. We believe in science. We believe in democracy. We believe that both genders have equal rights. That’s who we are. And the people took to the streets yesterday to make that very, very clear. Don’t say “both sides.” There are not “both sides.” But there is the vast majority of the 70%, and then there’s the 27% who believe they should control what a woman does with her reproductive organs. And that’s why they have such a small minority, because good people would never take that position. And only… I’m trying to just control my anger here about this. I want the media to start reporting this accurately, too. Come on, get with it. Don’t treat this like, “well on the one hand, women should be able to vote. But on the other hand, aren’t they just going to vote the way their husbands do? Why do we need to double the vote?” That was one of the big arguments back in the early 1900s — “what do we need women’s votes for, they’re just going to do what their husbands tell them to do?” Seriously. No, let’s get this straight. The vast majority of Americans are opposed to this decision. If the Supreme Court actually makes it official, this is not going to end. This opposition and this standing up for these rights, it’s going to be massive, and unrelenting. And we won’t let it go for 50 years, like the right-wingers. They couldn’t overturn Roe v Wade for 50 years. Well, that’s because the majority of this country didn’t support them — that’s why. If you had the majority support, you would have overturned it by now, but you don’t. What you did get was Donald Trump in office who lost the election, but because my fellow Michiganders — yes, I’m talking to you right now — an average of two of you per precinct in the state of Michigan in the 2016 presidential election, you decided that you didn’t have time to vote that day. Just two per precinct in the entire state of Michigan. Two per precinct didn’t show up to vote, and therefore Trump won Michigan, which means then he won the election as determined by the Electoral slave-supporting-state College. And because of that, he got to pack the court. One third of the court, Trump appointees. Three of the five that are going to pass this thing are his judges. 

Michael Moore [00:07:06] Thank you, everybody who showed up yesterday. Thank you. The next one, bigger, and the one after that, bigger. We must not relent here. The other side, they get these victories when they don’t have the support of the American people. There’s no Democratic support here. Even of their own party, the polls are showing 30-37% of Republicans don’t want to overturn Roe v Wade. That’s how alone these nutjobs are who think they know what’s best for women. Okay. All right. All of us have to take a stand here. There’s no sitting this one out, my friends. And then finally the — I’m recording this on Sunday evening — the racist white supremacist massacre of black people in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday. White kid, white supremacist kid in full body armor and camouflage, walks in with three long guns — a shotgun, a rifle and an AR-15 — and kills ten black people. Everyone dead is black. And then there’s three wounded people, I think one black and two white or brown people. This kid had been telegraphing it for a year online. He livestreamed his massacre of the people in the top supermarket there in Buffalo. I’ve been dealing with this issue for a long time. I come from a big gun state. When I got my Eagle Scout when I was a teenager, I also won the NRA Marksmanship Award. Yeah. And I’ve been fighting this gun-nut philosophy ever since. But let me tell you, as I said in Bowling for Columbine, it’s not just the guns. I mean, the NRA are sort of right when they say, “guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” Except I altered it to guns don’t kill people, Americans kill people. They have a lot of hunters up in Canada. They don’t kill each other like this. By law, every male head of household in Switzerland because they don’t have a standing army, there has to be a gun in the house in case they need to call a militia or an army together. Lots of guns. Lots of countries have guns. They don’t do this to each other the way we do it. But we have a particular thing. And this is why while I support gun control and all this, my friends, this isn’t really going to stop it because there’s a problem with us. It’s not just making the guns, you know, or having more laws. These three guns that this 18-year-old took in to that supermarket this weekend, they’re all legally bought. By an 18-year-old. Most of these massacres are committed by people who legally purchase their guns. That is not how we’re going to fix this problem in the United States. We have a unique problem with violence, and this violence and the fact that we have 350 million guns in our homes — why? What are we afraid of? When I say “we,” you know who I mean — the vast majority of guns are owned by white people in this country, not people of color. The vast majority of guns in this country are owned by people in the suburbs and in rural areas, not in the cities. Even though I know you watch the 11:00 news at night, “oh, all these guns, and the gun murders. All in these areas of town, you know where “they” live.” Hmm. My first thought yesterday when the news came through about this and how it was all black shoppers in this market that were being targeted. Nobody fired back at him — other than the security guard fired back. But because he had body armor, the bullets just bounced off, and then he killed the black security guard. But the shoppers, the shoppers didn’t fire back. “Wait a minute. I’ve been led to believe by the media that black people in the black parts of town, why they’ve got all these guns and they’re shooting guns all the time.” And yet, nobody had a gun on them in the supermarket. That’s because one of the big lies that white people are told in order to confirm their fears and to justify why so many white people have guns in their homes, have guns in their cars, is because they’ve been made to believe for a very long time who they have to fear, the “other”… Them. The black man. The black kids. Lie after lie after lie. And it doesn’t mean — Look, you know, I’m not saying that there isn’t shooting or gun violence in the black community, but the way that we are manipulated into accepting this. And then automatically going there, “hey, yeah. If the media is telling me this every day, you know, there’s like, I don’t know, 100 people, mostly all black in the store and nobody fired. Well, I’ve been told they’ve got guns on them all carrying their guns everywhere.” Stop it. Stop it. 

Michael Moore [00:13:08] The terrorist threat here is that white kid, that white 18-year-old. And, you know, all you gotta do is read the reports from the Department of Homeland Security, the NSA or the FBI over and over what they’ve been saying now for years. Al Qaida is not the threat. ISIS is not the threat. The threat is Clayton, Ray, Billy-Bob. Over and over and over again. And we don’t want to look at ourselves. We white people. We don’t want to think about this. We don’t want to think about why do we have most of the guns or a majority of the guns? What do you need a gun for in the suburbs, out in the rural area? Unless you’re a hunter, why do you need the gun? Why do you need the automatic weapon? What’s going on in your head? I mean, this is the part of “Bowling for Columbine” whenever anybody brings it up… And I get these calls but, as you know, I said years ago that when these mass shootings would happen, I’m done. I’m not going on anymore of these talk shows and you don’t see me on them. I don’t participate in this nonstop, you know, massacre. “Let’s get Mike on, talk about what he learned from Bowling for Columbine.” Well, no. If you want to learn what I learned, I put it in the movie, and it’s been seen by tens-of-millions of people. And I think a lot of people do understand it. This is the 20th anniversary of the movie this year. It’s 20 years ago. Actually, it was 20 years ago next week, this coming week, that we premiered it at the Cannes Film Festival. 20 years ago this coming week it won the prize. And, you know, looking at the naivety even of ourselves making the film, we started working on it really the afternoon of the Columbine massacre. And I gathered — we were working on our our TV show, The Awful Truth — and I just gathered the crew together and I said, “you know, we need to do something about this, not for the show but I mean, I think we really need to go out there and do a real movie” because this was so shocking. Columbine was so shocking with the number… Double digits, the number of people killed. And I said to the crew there in the office, I said, “I don’t think this is going to be the last of these.” It was really the first of that kind of – I mean, there had been school shootings and things like that before, but this was different. And I thought, “wow, here’s the floodgates now. They’re going to open and we got to make something about this, and we got to get people’s heads wrapped around this.” And of course, there have been now, I believe they said in the news this morning, 198 mass shootings this year — just since January. This is May. 198. A mass shooting is four or more people shot. I was so sad last night. 

Michael Moore [00:16:27] And before they even reported it, when it first happened, when they announced that something was going on at the Buffalo supermarket and it was a white kid and it was all black victims, I said to a friend, “I’m just going to go out on a limb here and say that the white shooter is still alive. The cops did not show up and shoot him.” Can you imagine a black person going into a white supermarket and massacring everyone and then the cops show up and then he just you know, first they said he put the gun to himself. Like he was going to kill himself. And then he dropped the gun, then he dropped the other guns. And then he started to take off his armor. All during this, like, little undressing of himself, nobody pops him. It’s a white kid. I’m sorry, I’m just going to say the truth, and you know it’s the truth — if it had been a black teenager in there firing away, that’s a dead black kid and you know it. I just knew this kid would be alive. If he didn’t kill himself, they weren’t going to kill him. Oh, man, I’m not ragging on the Buffalo Police, I’m just saying that in our culture, we love our white children. Oh, we love them so much. What was this child’s name yesterday? The shooter? Payton. “Payton. Oh, Payton. No, no, no, just drop the gun. Just drop the gun.” “Can I take my body armor off? I’m a little hot.” “Yes, yes, yes go right awhead. Just take your body armor off. No problem.” Payton. 

Michael Moore [00:18:13] Every American should be sick of this by now. Really? Do you have to be black to be sick of it? Come on, white people. Come on. Get out of your white bubble. We’re not going to make it as a country if we don’t figure out what’s really going on here with this issue and with all these other issues. The misogyny, with the Supreme Court decision. The racism of the shooters. The institutional racism throughout — making school boards afraid to teach our children in public schools the history of racism and violence against black and brown people in this country. They’ve got school boards so scared now. Come on. We’ve got to stand up to this. I don’t know, I’m just, I don’t know. We’ll do a screening for everybody here sometime, maybe this summer, and we can watch the movie together, and we can have on some people, and we can talk about what we really need to do. And what’s that thing that the Democrats have all been trained to say? “We need sensible gun legislation.” Uh-huh, yeah. “We need sensible poison control, poison control number. We need a sensible poison control. We need sensible clean water systems in this country. Sensible ones, you know, the sensible ones.” Knock it off. Knock it the fuck off. I’m sick of this, and I know you’re sick of it. We’re the majority. This is our country. We fought hard to get to this place where the majority of Americans believe in voting rights, the majority of Americans believe in women’s rights, the majority of Americans believe that the climate catastrophe is real. Go down the whole list — the majority of Americans take the liberal left, democratic, whatever you want to call it, that’s the position they’re in, the vast majority. And it’s only gotten more and more that way. George W Bush lost to Al Gore by a half a million votes and became president. Trump lost to Hillary by 3 million votes and became president. Trump lost to Biden by 7 million votes and yet became… When are we going to stop this? The vast majority of Americans in the last eight elections since Daddy Bush was president in the eighties, the last eight elections, the Republicans have lost the popular vote. They’ve only won it once. They’ve lost it seven out of eight times, and yet we’re not in charge. And that’s not our Supreme Court. This court, they don’t represent and reflect this country at all. And they’re going to learn that because women and their allies, the other gender or really I should say genders, because you don’t have to identify as a woman to get pregnant. The majority of this country is different now. We treat each other differently. The majority of us don’t own a gun. It’s like close to 70% of us don’t have a gun. We don’t own guns. We’re not that country. But we’ve let a small minority of crazy people take over. Why? Why aren’t you doing anything? Why aren’t you maybe… I know a lot of you who listen to me, you were out in the streets yesterday. But now it’s time to get our brothers and our sisters and our cousins and our coworkers, the people we go to school with — everybody out in the street, every time. “Well, I only have a half hour.” Then go for half an hour. “My feet are sore.” Well get on a bike, come on. This is your country. This is our country. This isn’t going to last. We are not going to be the winners if we let this happen to ourselves. I’m sorry I’ve gone on so long here. I built this episode as I’m going to the mailbag and answering some of your voicemails to me, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. And it’s going to sound a little happier and brighter, I think, here in just a couple of minutes. 

Michael Moore [00:23:12] But first, thank you for tuning in today, and I want to just, you know, thank our underwriters who support this podcast, starting with Wondrium. They’re a longtime supporter of mine, and this podcast. You know them, Wondrium. It’s a subscription video service. It focuses on helping you and me become a better you and me. In other words, educate ourselves, learn things, keep the mind going. I’m listening to this course called How to Play Chess. I have never learned how to play chess. I’ve always wanted to. And I thought, I got to learn to play this. What I’ve understood to hear from doctors is that this is a good idea. And there’s something for really for everybody, no matter what your interests are. These are courses or tutorials, they are all taught by university professors and experts who really know their stuff. And that’s in addition to their collection of compelling documentaries, which I have often talked about here on this podcast. So don’t wait. I want you to sign up for Wondrium also. Join me in this. Okay. Sign up now through my special URL to start your free trial. Go to Wondrium.com/rumble. Do it now. Wondrium.com/rumble and you can start your free trial today. Thank you Wondrium for supporting this podcast. 

Michael Moore [00:24:29] I’d also like to thank our other underwriter for this week’s episode, Moink. That’s “moo” plus “oink,” Moink. So let me explain Moink. It’s a meat subscription company that’s really making a big difference by helping small family farms become financially independent from Big Agriculture. Now, I know we’re all living in difficult times, lots going on. But now, more than ever, in a time when the top 1% of U.S. earners now hold more wealth than all of the middle class combined, we need to stick together and we need to support these family farms. I know some of us, as I said, you don’t eat meat and I respect that. But for those of you who do like me, I want to encourage you to sign up for Moink. It delivers grass-fed and grass-finished beef and lamb, pasteurized pork and chicken, and sustainable wild-caught Alaskan salmon direct to your door. They ship it right to you. And the best part is that their animals are raised outdoors on grass. No growth hormones, no antibiotics. They’re not confined to buildings, just good old fashioned farming methods. And you can mix your order up each month and you can cancel anytime. So take back control of the quality and the source of your food, and keep the family American farm going by signing up at MoinkBox.com/rumble right now and listeners of this show get free filet mignon in every order for a year. That’s one year of the best filet mignon you’ll ever taste, but it’s only for a limited time. MoinkBox.com/rumble. And thank you, Moink, for supporting this podcast and supporting my voice here on Rumble. MoinkBox.com/rumble. 

Michael Moore [00:26:20] All right, it’s time to open the mailbag. Now, you know, there’s two different ways that you can always write to me. I read and listen to all my mail. I do not answer it because I would not make another movie ever again. It would literally take, you know, 8 hours a day, five days a week to — “oh, I know what you’re saying, Mike. You could make the movie on the weekend. Answer my letter.” I can’t do it. But I do read them. I do. I read them and I listen to your feedback. And it’s important. And then every few months I air some of your voicemails. And the link is right here on my podcast platform page, you just click the link and on comes my voicemail and it’s my voicemail and it goes right to me. I hear it. You get one minute, you have to think of what you’re going to say because you can’t leave a ten minute voicemail. Sorry. One minute voicemail. Say whatever you want, ask me a question, whatever, and then I’ll pick some of these and I will play them and answer them right here on Rumble. And that’s what we’re going to do for the rest of the episode here today. I really love doing this and I want to thank everybody in advance. Those of you who just want to write something you write me at Mike@MichaelMoore.com. That’s it. Mike@MichaeMoore.com. And I get your email right away, I read it, and I appreciate it. And some of the best ideas I’ve had for episodes of Rumble have come from those of you who’ve written me, Mike@MichaelMoore.com. And, you know, when you go to that website, you see both the Substack column and also this podcast. So let’s get started. We’ve got a number of wonderful voice messages here. I’m going to play the voice message. And if I have a comment, or if I’m answering a question or whatever, I will do that. This will move along nice and fast and and I’m happy to do it. And thank you, all of you who do leave me these voice messages. So Angie here, our producer Angela Vargos is here to help me. Who are we starting with? 

Angie (Rumble producer) [00:28:44] Ada. 

Michael Moore [00:28:44] Oh, this is Ada from Poland. Let’s start with Ada and we’ll take it from there. 

Ada’s voice message [00:28:50] So, I’m Polish and although I don’t live here, I was here when the war broke out, and I’m here now, and I stopped watching the news. I put it on just for a few minutes and then turn it off. Every time I hear Zelensky calling for a no-fly zone, or asking for our fighter jets, I get really, really nervous. I don’t want Poland to be the theater of war yet again. We’ve been there in the past, and it was devastating. I don’t want my country sacrificed in some war between other powers. You know, for America, this is still far away on the other side of the ocean, but for us, it is 15-miles from our eastern border. 

Michael Moore [00:29:39] Well, Ada, thank you for that. And I think I speak for quite a few people in saying it’s been a pretty rough three months or so watching the tragic, tragic killing that’s been going on. All killing is tragic, but you know what I mean. It’s just been relentless. And, you know, a lot of the Western European countries and the United States, Canada, people have been very supportive in sending humanitarian relief, and helping house refugees. Since ’14, 2014, when Putin invaded and took Crimea from Ukraine, you know, this country and other Western countries, NATO countries, have given a lot of armaments, and a lot of training to the Ukrainian armed forces. And clearly that has helped. You’ve seen, I’m sure, the latest pictures of all the Russian tanks and vehicles being destroyed as they built a bridge, temporary bridge, to get across the river there in eastern Ukraine this week. And the Ukrainians just took the bridge out, took the tanks out. As I’ve said before on this show, if you are fighting against some behemoth that either has colonized your country, or has invaded it, you have to do the fighting. That’s the only way it works. If you say “send in the Americans,” I’ll give you a whole bunch of examples where that doesn’t work. If we invade, we lose — from Vietnam to Iraq. Why? Because it’s their country and they’re going to fight back in a whole different way. You don’t just invade another country, especially a country that never invaded you. So Putin and the Russians are learning that the Ukrainian people are not going to allow this, and they’re going to fight back. Now, we didn’t like it when the Iraqis fought back, when they planted the IEDs along the roadside and blew up our kids in their tanks and their jeeps and all that. It was pretty sad, but it was their country, it was their neighborhood, and they were invaded by the United States. So yeah, they’re going to fight back and they have a lot more interest in winning because it’s their home, and they usually, not always, but usually will defeat those who have invaded. Sometimes it takes time. Sometimes the French Resistance doesn’t succeed in week one in 1940, but eventually they and the allies, the people that support them, do succeed. Same thing for us in our revolution. I mean, we had the help of the French. We needed it. But if the French had decided to send their whole army and navy over here entirely to try and fight the British and defeat the British for us — if we weren’t willing to die for our own country, we weren’t going to win. That’s just the truth. And that’s what Putin doesn’t understand about Ukraine. And that’s why, you know, I mean, I have my criticisms of Biden about this, but I’ll tell you, what he’s done is he’s not started World War III. And I know other Democrats, had they been in office, they would have. You got to prove you’re tough, you know, because you’re Democrats. You’re always being criticized for being weak. So, you know, “I’ll take that 3:00am call and show them what’s what.” Right? Yeah, not Biden. He’s not taken the bait from the Republicans, or from the people in his own party, or from Putin. None of it, because, as Ada just said, this will expand so quickly into all of Eastern Europe. And because Putin is crazy, we don’t know what… His fingers on the nuclear — the same button that Trump’s finger was on. So we do have to be cautious, try to get negotiations going, keep the pressure of the world on Putin, strap him in financially, and support the Ukrainian people because they’re going to win. But don’t start World War III. And thank you, Ada, for reminding us of that —especially when you and your family are so close to all this death and destruction. Okay. Who do we have up next, Angie? 

Angie (Rumble producer) [00:34:34] Cody. 

Michael Moore [00:34:35] Cody. Okay, Cody. Let’s hear what you have to say. 

Cody’s voice message [00:34:38] Hi, Mike. My name is Cody and I’m responding to your mailbag episode. I remember there was a woman who said we should change the Senate, and I agree. I disagree with her that it’s fair that California should get maybe ten senators and the other states, maybe two. I live in a rural liberal state. Maine, to be exact. We’d like to get rid of Collins, but I digress. Anyway, I don’t think we should have our voice trampled by a state the size of Texas that typically goes Republican. I think we should switch over to the Australian system, which is preferential voting. Under their system, every state gets ten senators and each of them is from a different party. That, I think, is a better system and makes our Senate an actual house of review instead of a bureaucracy of the two parties. Thank you. 

Michael Moore [00:35:36] Well, Representative, speaking for the people of Maine, we love Maine. Everybody loves Maine. Let’s just get that straight. But, yeah, see, the thing is, one person, one vote, that’s the way it has to be. Or it’s not a democracy. You can’t call it a democracy if it’s not one person, one vote. You can’t have 500,000 people in Wyoming having the same say as 40 million people in California. Sorry, sorry. Not right. You know it’s not right. If everybody agrees — what did you call it, Cody? A review board? Like what the Senate should be or like the House of Lords — that just cannot control everything that’s done in the whole kingdom of United, the Kingdom of United, the United Kingdom. It has to be one person, one vote. Maybe we should just have the House. And you said Texas, I know to scare us — like what if they had ten senators? Except, you see, once we also in our democracy have voting rights, and we end voter suppression, and we end gerrymandering, Texas, let me just remind you, is 57% people of color. Nonwhite. 57%. The vast majority of that state are not a bunch of white yahoos. We got to get into 2022 here. The majority of Texas is brown, black or Asian or Native American. No, I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of them having ten senators if we fix everything else to make sure the people of Texas are properly represented. I feel very strongly — I’m sorry you feel this way. Cody, I know you don’t want to lose the power that you get from having those two Senate votes, but really, what good is Susan Collins anyway? Seriously, I mean, for real? Unbelievable. Okay. Who’s our next voicemail from? 

Angie (Rumble producer) [00:37:37] Dominic. 

Michael Moore [00:37:39] Dominic. All right, Dominic, let’s hear from you. 

Dominic’s voice message [00:37:42] So, Mr. Moore, two words to describe socialism and communism. Are you ready? 

Michael Moore [00:37:51] I’m ready. 

Dominic’s voice message [00:37:51] Here we go. Equal misery. 

Michael Moore [00:37:59] Equal misery is how you would define socialism and communism. Well, communism. What is that anyways anymore? Is that even a thing? I mean, didn’t communism collapse essentially throughout the Soviet Union, in Eastern Europe? And then they still call themselves the Communist Party in China, but who’s kidding whom here, folks? They have a system of state capitalism. And they made a lot of people wealthy. And they’ve also pulled hundreds of millions out of poverty, too. So I don’t know. That’s another day for another discussion, but no. Socialism, the idea of socialism, why don’t we just stick with that? The practice of a lot of these things has been not the best it could be, obviously, but the idea of everybody having a seat at the table, and everybody getting a slice of the pie — a big enough slice so that they’ve got a roof over their heads, they don’t live in bankruptcy, they’re able to have time off from work, they have free universal health care, and not just medical, but mental and dental. I mean, isn’t so much of what the major religions say that they believe in, is exactly that? That the poor have to be taken care of, that we have to have a system where there’s a safety net where nobody falls between the cracks? Wouldn’t we be a happier country if that’s the way we lived? The misery we have right now is with capitalism. The misery is, as I said earlier in the podcast, you’ve got 1% of the country owning more than the entire middle class put together. That’s misery — people struggling to make their mortgage payments, struggling to make their car payments, struggling to now put food on the table. All of this stuff is because we have an unequal system. So more equality, what you call socialism, people call it democratic socialism, some people just call it Canadian, or Sweden. Not such a bad idea. All right. Up next, who do we have? 

Henry’s voice message [00:40:36] Hi, Michael. My name is Henry Miller. I’m 19-years-old and I live in a small town in northern New Jersey in the congressional district where you ran a ficus tree, actually. I’m also a member of my town and county’s Democratic committees, and I’m the head of my college’s chapter of Our Revolution. In today’s podcast, you spoke about how Democratic senators are not meeting the urgency of this moment. You said their speeches are not enough and that we need to peacefully take to the streets. I wholeheartedly agree, and I believe that you can help bring this needed urgency. August 6th, 2022 to will be the 57th anniversary of LBJ signing the Voting Rights Act into law. If you put out a call for a nationwide march for voting rights on this day, people would organize. If you asked, I know I would organize a march here in New Jersey. Your other listeners would do the same. You know the urgency of this moment. Please lead your listeners and we will organize our communities. Let the world know the American people demand democracy. 

Michael Moore [00:41:33] Wow. Well, thank you, Henry, for being so politically active and involved in your town in New Jersey and at your school. Much, much appreciated. First of all, can we just pause and say, if all of us just did half of what Henry is doing, we’d be in much better shape because we would be out there leading people, leading them against the Supreme Court, leading them against everything, frankly. You know, in some upcoming episodes, I’m going to talk about what you can do in your neighborhood, in your apartment building, things like that and not wait for all this bad news to happen. Yes, the idea of having a huge demonstration on the anniversary of Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act in 1965 — and as you know, I did a podcast on this earlier this year about my mom took us kids on a trip to Washington, D.C., not knowing this was going to be debated or voted on, but we ended up in the House Senate gallery there when they were debating the Voting Rights Act in 1965. I was in fourth grade? Yeah, I just finished fourth grade. Boy, it was something, it was very powerful to hear the speeches and to see this law being passed, a law that’s now been gutted and that we need now more than ever. So thank you for the advice to me, Henry. I will think about this and I will think about how to involve everybody who’s listening to this. It’s vital. Absolutely vital. And thank you again for what you’re doing. Angie, who do we have next? 

Angie (Rumble producer) [00:43:10] John. 

Michael Moore [00:43:10] John. Okay. John. 

John’s voice message [00:43:12] Michael, please, please have the Traverse City Film Festival happen this summer. Please. I am begging you. Even a scaled back version – just have something. I will help. Please, please, please. 

Michael Moore [00:43:32] All right. I hear you. I feel your pain. What John’s referring to is I live in Traverse City, Michigan, up in northern Michigan, and 17 years ago I started a film festival there, and it went right up into the pandemic. And then we haven’t had it now in ’20 and ’21. It’s really a wonderful festival. I’ve always invited people to come to it, no matter where you live. I pick the movies. So John, we are going to have it. It’s coming back. It’s this year, July 26th-31st, Traverse City, Michigan. You can go to TraverseCityFilmFestival.com. We’re kind of redoing the website right now, but you can gather enough from it. Tickets don’t go on sale until the beginning of July, so don’t worry everybody. I’m still looking at films and deciding which are the final ones that are going to make the cut, but we are coming back. We are back. Our two year-round theaters that the festival owns and runs, we’re a nonprofit in Traverse City, the State Theater and the Bijou Theater are both reopened now. And so you can go there every week and see a great movie. This weekend — what are we showing this weekend? Oh, we’ve got the Nicolas Cage film, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” very funny film, and a British comedy with Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent called “The Duke.” And then starting on this Thursday, the new Downton Abbey movie, “Downton Abbey: A New Era.” It sounds like a Star Wars movie, but it’s actually… They move the action from the British countryside to the south of France. So I hope to see everybody there this summer at the Traverse City Film Festival. Next up is Carla, and I believe she’s from that kingdom we called United. 

Carla’s voice message [00:45:11] Hello, Michael, this is Carla Butler. I’m from London, England, but I now live in Seattle, Washington. And years ago, I watched your documentary in Bristol, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” and I came out of the cinema in floods of tears, just watching Lila Lipscomb’s grief. Absolutely just stayed with me for years and years and years. It was so nice to hear how she was doing. And she is my hero. She’s so strong. Thank you so much for speaking out against that war. I know it was hard. I know that you had a lot of detractors. A lot of people were in support of that war, including all the Blair-ites in England. I commend you for speaking out against that war. And I just want you to know — we love you in England, Michael. Keep up the good work. You’re my hero. 

Michael Moore [00:46:07] Oh, man. That’s… I don’t know, what do I say to that? Stop loving me in England. No, that’s very sweet. Thank you for saying that. And it and yes, it was difficult, but everybody who spoke out against the war at that time knows that to be true, it’s not unusual. The majority of Democratic senators supported the invasion of Iraq. It was supported by writers and journalists and people, the New York Times, The New Yorker magazine, all liberal publications, a lot of them were behind this. But those of us who knew what was wrong knew it was wrong. And, you know, what do you what are you going to do at that point? If you know it’s wrong, you have to speak up. So thank you for saying that, Carl. It’s very, very nice of you. All right. Don’t we have somebody who’s mad at me?

Louis’ voice message [00:47:03] Mike, I bet you will never play this on your podcast, but since you’re such a big union guy, why don’t you publish the salaries of the leaders of the unions, and the salaries of the workers that belong to that union? It’d be interesting to see, especially what the teachers union head gets, what the AFL-CIO head gets, etc. So if you got the balls to do it, I challenge you to do it. 

Michael Moore [00:47:33] “If you got the balls to do it…” Aren’t we in 2022? Seriously, guys, come on, let’s get with it. Yes, I got your voicemail. Thank you very much, Louis. And so I just randomly went online here and see that the the president of the American Postal Workers Union gets $174,000 a year. The head of the Steelworkers union gets $210,000 a year. The head of the American Federation of Teachers, $450,000, and the head of the AFL-CIO, $292,000. So there you go. That’s what they get. They get a lot. You know, they’re fighting behemoths, corporations that have executives that are paid millions, tens of millions of dollars. They don’t make 10% of what these CEOs are making. But I don’t know, if I were the president of a union, I don’t know what I would take for that work. But I think union members would say we want the people running this thing to be paid well because they are having to work morning, noon and night, seven days a week to protect us workers. I belong to three unions: the Writers Guild, the Directors Guild, Screen Actors Guild. I honestly don’t know what they make. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s that much because they also write movies and direct movies and they work in front of the camera so they’re also making pretty decent money there. But there you go. You said that I wouldn’t put it in the podcast — I’ll tell you, anybody who leads their voice mail with, “you’ll never put this on the podcast,” you can guarantee that your voice mail is going to make it on the air. All right. Who do we have coming up next? 

Angie (Rumble producer) [00:49:21] Laura 

Michael Moore [00:49:22] All right. 

Laura’s voice message [00:49:23] Michael, you are such a brave, inspirational man. I fully believe that women are the answer for stopping violence with guns, but also so many other things in our society. I am creating something called World Sisters to bring women together around the world to stop the madness. It’s critical right now. And I so appreciate your mind, your thoughts and your action. God bless you. 

Michael Moore [00:50:00] Wow. Thank you, Laura, very much for that. It means a lot to hear that. And, you know, people say to me, oh, I’m sure you hear it. No, you don’t always hear it. And people don’t always say it. And I don’t always say it to people I should say it to thank them for what they do. And so I’m a big believer in that. And thank you for those wonderful comments. Okay. Who do we have next here? 

Lenanne’s voice message [00:50:25] Hey, Michael, thank you for all you’re doing to energize the airwaves. I’m Lenanne. You might remember meeting my daughter, Lindsay and me at your amazing Traverse City Film Festival a few years ago. To this day, Lindsay has the photo I took of the two of you together, displayed on her coffee table in a frame that says BFF. I’m interested in your thoughts on the upcoming election. The consensus appears to be that Democrats will be losing a lot of seats in Congress and the radical Republicans are strengthening. Just today, I saw a large sign that said, “Cancel our Governor, Cancel Biden, Restore America” on some private property outside our city. With the sad news from Ukraine and my friends there having just evacuated to Poland, and the outrage over inflation and gas prices, plus the efforts to restrict voting and take away women’s right to choose abortion I’m wondering, do you think our country will shortly be run by reactionary Republicans? 

Michael Moore [00:51:22] Well, as you know, I’m probably one of the few people — I don’t participate in that kind of thinking. I don’t think they are necessarily going to win, the Republicans, this November. I guess the Democrats do control some of that, but again, I just think there’s so many tens of millions of us who do not want Trump or these Republicans back in power. And the trend is every single election since the one election the Republicans have won in the last 34 years of whatever it is, one election is all they won. The trend is us winning. Let’s focus on that and let’s figure out what we can do to get people out. And don’t leave it up to the Democratic Party. That part’s right because they sometimes are professionals in losing and they don’t know how to win. And boy, I wish they would hire me just for a dollar a year. I could give them so much advice. I know. I know that’s not going to happen. Okay. Anyways, don’t despair. We have to fight here, all of us, between now and November. All right, Angie, who is up next on the voicemail? 

Lori’s voice message [00:52:36] Hi, Mike. This is Lori. Thank you for all that you’re doing. I just listened to your Rumble with Representative Kildee, and at one point he said “Too Big to Rig.” And that just leapt out at me as such a great slogan for really motivating people to get involved and participate. And your ear probably picked up on that too, but I just wanted to reinforce that — Too Big to Rig. Sounded like a great clarion call. So I see T-shirts and all kinds of things with that. So anyway, best and thank you. 

Michael Moore [00:53:15] Well, thank you, Lori, for that. Yes. And I will pass your thanks onto Representative Kildee from Flint. I loved that too — Too Big to Rig — because if we have such a massive turnout, it will make it hard for these Republicans, secretary of states, and the people that control the elections in the states, to try and rig this for Trump and the candidates that he’s endorsed. Too Big to Rig. Absolutely. But to make that happen, that means we all have to get out there. So thank you very much for leaving that voice message. Didn’t we have somebody from Melbourne, Australia, on the list here? 

Marion’s voice message [00:53:59] Hi, Michael, it’s Marion from Melbourne, Australia. I’ve just been listening to your podcast with Sean Penn on a beautiful, glorious Sunday morning here in Melbourne. I just have to say that that saying, “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing,” comes to mind. And you can hear I’m a bit emotional about this because your talk with Sean showed that you and he are both good men. So keep standing up for the people who need standing up for. Thank you, Michael. 

Michael Moore [00:54:32] Wow. Thank you very much, Marion, for saying that. Don’t despair, though. I know how it feels, but I’m quite optimistic — if everybody will act. It’s really in our hands. The younger generation have rejected the right wing. Remember, 70% of the people eligible to vote in this country right now, 70% are either women, people of color or young people between the ages of 18 and 35. Come on. That’s the base. That’s the people who are on our side. Not the majority of white women, but the majority of women are. Come on. And let’s get the rest — we’re only just a few percentage points down where, you know, Trump won the white female vote. We can fix that by the next election. People of color, women, young people, make up 70% of the electorate. How could we lose? Come on. Come on. Come on, people. All right. We got time for just a couple more. Matt from Salt Lake — this is his voicemail. 

Matt’s voice message [00:55:55] Hi, Michael. This is Matt from Salt Lake City, Utah. I’ve been thinking about the issue of national health care and how it is so central to so much of what is wrong in this country. I was wondering if an approach such as was done with the right to gay marriage could be accomplished with the right to health care? I believe the lack of affordable health care actually violates constitutional rights, and I believe it’s within the government’s responsibility to its citizens to provide that access. I’ve even gone as far as thinking about challenging it in a series of lawsuits, if that is something that could be done. Thanks, love the podcast. 

Michael Moore [00:56:42] Wow. Thank you, Matt. That’s a great idea. I love the idea of suing them because it violates the Constitution — that if you get sick, you don’t have a right to get help. I don’t know where that’s at in the Constitution, but if it isn’t, it should be. And maybe write me back again or let me know how this could be done because we absolutely need universal, free health care for everyone — and that includes mental health and dental. All of it. It’s absolutely wrong, and it’s barbaric in the richest country on the planet that we don’t have this. And I’ll keep saying this till I’m, you know, blue in the face. All right. We’re going to hear from a woman by the name of Patricia. 

Patricia’s voice message [00:57:35] Okay, Michael, you darling, darling man from Michigan. I’m a former Michigander. I’m 85-years-old now, and I am wishing you just the best. And I’m hoping that maybe in 2022 and before I pass away, my time’s running short, that we can get some kind of gun control, that we can allow abortions for women to make their own choices, that we can have some of these things — a Build Back Better Plan. Oh, my goodness, if Santa could just bring us these things, I would be so grateful. But anyhow, with that, Michael, I just appreciate you so very much and I’m so glad that I’ve lived this long that I have somebody to listen to like you. 

Michael Moore [00:58:23] Wow. Well, I’m glad I lived this long to hear that from you. Patricia, that was so sweet of you. And you are going to live to see the day that we’re all waiting for — but we can’t just wait for it, we all have to act to make it happen. 85-years-old, come on — you got at least another 15 years to get involved in and do what you’ve been doing. It was so sweet to hear your voice and thank you for leaving that wonderful message. Who do we have next here? 

Angie (Rumble producer) [00:58:54] KELLY. 

Michael Moore [00:58:54] Oh, okay. I think, you know, we’ll probably will close with Kelly here. Kelly from Oregon. I heard this earlier today and I was moved by it. So let’s run Kelly’s voice mail. 

Kelly’s voice message [00:59:10] Hi, Mike. My name is Kelly. I’m a nurse, and I’m calling from Eugene, Oregon. Thank you for all you do. I’ve been a fan since the ’90s when I stumbled on your show, “TV Nation,” and I was amazed by your fearlessness. Anyway, I want to share an idea with you from the anthropologist Marvin Harris. He pointed out that it is cooperation, not competition, that has allowed humanity to survive over the ages. I think the lie of social Darwinism has separated us in this country to believe that there are limited resources and we suffer by helping others. It’s the foundation of the belief that if you’re poor, it’s your fault. The super rich benefit by seeing the lower classes fighting. We should all vote, but we should also reject the lie of exaggerated individuality and narcissism that we’ve been forced fed in this country and say, “No, I will love my fellow humans. I will feed the poor, I will help the sick. And if we all work together, we can have good lives full of plenty.” Thank you. 

Michael Moore [01:00:09] Thank you, Kelly. That was so beautifully put. And thank you for being a nurse. Geez, you’re absolutely right. If we based our country and how we behave on cooperation as opposed to competition, it would be so, so, so much better. We all have to come together in this. We can do this. I know we can. Most people you run into, not everybody I know, but most people we run into, they’re good people. Nobody wants anybody to go hungry. Nobody wants anybody to go without medicine, or seeing a doctor, living in a decent home — all the basic stuff that the richest country on Earth should be able to provide. Don’t get hooked in by politicians and, you know, corporate leaders and others who they only, as she said, Kelly, you’re right, they only benefit when we fight each other like this. Thank you very much. And thanks to everybody who has sent me a voicemail here or who has written me an email to Mike@MichaelMoore.com. There’s a link right here where you can get on my voicemail. Just click the link and you’re on it and you got a minute. But remember, you don’t have to leave a nice one. I mean, be respectful, please, but if you disagree, or you want to challenge me on something, man, please do it. I love listening to these and love hearing from you. I love answering your questions. Means a lot to me. Always looking for good ideas too — things you think I should do a podcast on or whatever. I’m very open to all of that, so let’s keep moving forward. We have a lot on our agenda here. We have a lot facing us in the coming weeks. But we have each other, and there’s a lot of us. A lot of us. So let’s keep it up. 

Michael Moore [01:02:16] Thanks, everybody. I want to thank my producer and editor, Angela Vargos. And thanks to Donald Borenstein for helping with these voicemails and everybody else who helps me here with this podcast. It’s much appreciated. Be well and I’ll talk to you here sometime in the next week or so. This is Michael Moore, and this has been Rumble.