-...tonight is the Academy Award-winning filmmaker
of documentaries like "Roger & Me,"
"Bowling for Columbine," and "Fahrenheit 9/11."
His podcast, "Rumble with Michael Moore,"
is available wherever you get your podcasts.
Please welcome back to the show Michael Moore.
Michael, how are you?
-Great, Seth. Thanks for having me on.
-I feel as though our appearances together
on this show have been cloaked
in sort of an oppressive pessimism.
Are you feeling a little bit more optimistic
based on where we're at as a nation today?
-Yes. And what are we going to talk about now?
[ Laughter ]
-You know, that keeps coming up on this show.
-No, there's a lot to talk about, obviously.
What you just covered, what's happening in Michigan,
what happened a couple nights ago
with the board of canvassers, all of this.
You know, we've had these crazy Republicans in Michigan
long before Trump.
So this isn't -- it isn't that they joined Trump's party.
Trump joined their party.
Remember, it was the Republican governor of Michigan
that took the people of Flint off the clean water
from Lake Huron and made them drink from the Flint River
and poisoned the entire town.
So that's the Republicans, that's the way
they've always been in Michigan, and this is no different,
this crazy thing that happened there where they were
going to try to deny the people of Detroit the right
to have their vote counted.
-We've obviously talked about Joe Biden
and the fact that you liked him.
You met him at a DNC.
What was your first interaction with him like?
-Yeah, I met him at the Democratic Convention
in Boston in 2004, and I was in the presidential box,
which is not where I'm usually found.
But President Jimmy Carter had invited me to sit with him
at the convention.
And of course this drove Fox News
and the right wing crazy.
But in one of those --
you know where they have those luxury boxes
at the basketball
or the football game or whatever,
I didn't realize this but you actually --
there's a whole area behind the box
that's full of catered food.
So naturally I left my seat and went back
to get something to eat,
and in through the door comes Joe Biden.
I'd never met him before.
He sees me and he just goes, like, "Holy --"
[ Laughter ]
Expletive.
And he comes at me, he's all smiles
and he's shakin' my -- grabbin' my hand.
"Oh, God, I've always wanted to meet you.
And it --
Wow, mother [bleep], this is something. Wow!"
And he's just dropping F-bombs. And I'm like, "Whoa."
And then we start talking, he wants to talk about
my dad working in the factory
and my mom was a clerk and this and that.
And, you know, I knew he always said
he was from the working class, but I never saw it
because he always had those nicely tailored suits,
perfect teeth.
And within ten or 15 minutes, I realized,
"Wow, he is one of us.
He did come from where I came from."
There's no cameras around, it not a show or anything.
He's just being himself.
And I think what Bernie had said about him,
that he was a good and decent person.
And I guess in those minutes there with him, you know,
I don't know, 15 minutes --
Can you make up your mind about somebody in 15 minutes?
I guess I decided that he was that person.
And I have felt through the campaign,
even though I was helping Bernie,
I think that I felt that if he became president,
we were going to have a chance.
And even though maybe our politics
didn't line up entirely,
we were going to have a better chance getting
our thing through.
Like -- like -- -There's really a lot
of parallels with what you're saying
to what Bernie has said about Joe over the years,
which is one, he always makes clear we're different
on a lot of things politically.
Two, though, he always makes clear that
he really likes Joe Biden.
And he thinks that he can get on the phone with him if need be.
Obviously one of the things progressives are up against now
is the fact that the president-elect
is a bit more moderate.
Are you -- how do you feel like progressives have to try
to influence policy moving forward?
-We may have to make sure our voices are heard,
and we have to be heard right now
while he's picking the cabinet, while they're deciding policy.
This is a very critical phase.
And so -- but I believe that Joe Biden will listen.
We may not always get our way,
we may not get him to agree with us on everything,
but I think that it's kind of like if he says
he's against Medicare for All.
But if -- when we get the Senate,
and if we pass a Medicare for All bill
and it goes to his desk, he's not going to veto it.
He's not going to say, "No, I'm -- what, what?
Everybody gets health care? No way!"
He's not going to do that.
If he's for $12 an hour minimum wage
and the bill says $15 because we --
the progressive part of this, which is really
the majority because the majority of Americans
want a $15 an hour minimum wage.
They want women paid the same as men.
They believe that climate change is real.
This is a progressive country. I've said this many times.
And if the progressive legislation comes on his desk,
I got to believe he's going to sign this.
He's not going to -- he not going to send it back.
We have a better chance with him.
Obviously better than if Trump had won another term.
And I'm actually -- I'm surprised, frankly.
I have to say, I don't know how you feel about this.
If COVID hadn't come along, would --
would Trump have won?
Would he have got that second term?
Because here's the thing.
I've wondered about this for months.
You know, an authoritarian, totalitarian leader
would relish to have the opportunity to tell the people,
"You will wear a mask, you will stay indoors."
You know, that's what an authoritarian wants to do.
They want to give orders,
and also wants to be seen as the hero.
Take the reins of this virus, kill the virus, succeed.
Not Trump. No, the opposite.
He doesn't do anything.
He just ignores it or tries to pretend
it will go away by Easter.
And now we have a quarter million dead.
Seth, a quarter million dead
is the same exact number of people as if --
if you wake up tomorrow morning and you look at your phone
and it says, "Breaking news,
Richmond, Virginia, has been annihilated.
Everyone is dead."
That would be such --
what would that do to our collective heads?
And yet here we are tonight at a quarter million dead.
And we're not acting like Richmond, Virginia,
has just been annihilated.
We're not acting like there are now --
there's now a 9/11 every two --
every two or three days now.
We're -- I don't know what it is,
but we need Biden and his team to take these reins,
to get this country -- as Fauci said this week,
we need a national mandate of how to deal with this virus,
not a state by state by state.
-I want to get back, talk about that.
We'll be right back with more from Michael Moore.