The Michael Moore PodcastTranscripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
To read more about Episode 221, visit the main episode page.
Michael Moore [00:00:30] This is Rumble with Michael Moore and I am Michael Moore. Welcome everyone. And let me just begin by thanking all of you over the last few days for your response to my Substack column that was posted on Monday morning, Eastern Time in the USA. If you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to read it. It’s gotten quite a response. It’s entitled a memorial to the terrorists: when the terrorists are us, and it’s based on the announcement here over the last couple of weeks that Democrats and Republicans have come together in wanting to build on our National Mall in Washington, DC next to the Vietnam Memorial, they want to build a memorial called the Memorial to the War on Global Terrorism. And man, there are so many awful things about that thought and the ironies involved, I wrote a piece on it, and I’d love for you to read it on my Substack now.
Michael Moore [00:01:28] If you’re not on my Substack, it’s free. You just type in MichaelMoore.com. That’s MichaelMoore.com and my Substack site with all of my weekly letters, columns, etc will pop up. And it’s all free of charge. If you want to become a paid member, which you’re welcome to do to support our work, but not necessary as none of my writings and none of these podcasts exist behind a paywall, not at all, but I’d love for you to read these things. They usually come out on Sunday or Monday, sometimes on Saturday. My Substack column. So thank you, though, for those who commented and wrote to me about this. It was really very powerful stuff.
Michael Moore [00:02:11] And we also have on our Moore Store some more ball caps and hoodies and T-shirts and coffee mugs and stuff like that. And you’re welcome to visit that and pick up something or get a holiday gift for people in your life, whatever. And with the holidays coming up, the U.S. Postal Service, we ship first class delivery. They have told us that you got to get your orders in if you want a guaranteed delivery by Christmas. Get it in by December 11th. I would even go sooner than that, frankly. And I asked you last week here on Rumble because I get this every year, people say, We’re having Thanksgiving again. Our crazy brother in law is coming. Our crazy uncle is coming. What do we do, Mike? I get this. I mean, so I wrote in my book, “Dude, Where’s My Country?” I believe it was Chapter 10, a chapter called How to Talk to Your Conservative Brother in Law. And this was back in the early 2000s, pre-Trump, it was already a problem. You know, once Bush was elected, it was kind of like, that’s where these Thanksgiving dinners started falling apart. And so I wrote about this then.
Michael Moore [00:03:24] And each year I’ve talked about it, I’ve posted about it. And this year I thought, Why don’t I ask you, my Rumble listeners, the Rumblers out there, to send me what is the biggest problem or how to handle, tell me the one thing that this sad Trumpster person that’s going to be sitting at your table, you know, how to deal with it. And so you did. You wrote to me this week so many interesting, fascinating, horrifying instances of how you’ve had to deal with a conservative brother in law at the table. And so I said, if you wrote me these, I will give you my advice on today’s Rumble, and that is what we’re going to do today. Thanksgiving advice for the Trump conservative brother in law or uncle at the Thanksgiving table.
Michael Moore [00:05:08] And as I promised you last week, I would on this episode give you my advice for how to deal with family members that seem to have maybe lost their marbles. They are still Trumpsters, they are not getting vaccinated. It ends up in some kind of argument at the table over politics and some people just want to eat the turkey. So you have written to me what to do when Uncle Herb or Grandpa Ned or brother in law Bob start to, you know, they have an audience, that’s captive, and they’re going to tell you about everything from Joe Biden’s socialism to the wonders of bitcoin. So what I’m going for here is peace on Earth and peace at Thanksgiving. Maybe the first thing I want to say is to the people out there who are alone, who aren’t having Thanksgiving with anybody this year either, because maybe someone that you love dearly has passed away. Maybe it’s because you’re far away from your family. Maybe it’s because during this pandemic, you’ve realized who your friends are, who aren’t, and it’s a much smaller number than you thought in terms of the friends category.
Michael Moore [00:09:01] All of that makes this a difficult and lonely Thanksgiving. Some of you are not well. Some of you are still suffering from the after effects of COVID. Many if you don’t have the money to celebrate Thanksgiving and buy the things you’re supposed to get and make. And you don’t have people coming over anyway. So, you know, there you go. And some of you don’t want to go to somebody else’s house. It’s still too scary right now. It’s too..places like, you know, Michigan, it’s code red. So for a whole host of reasons, I may be talking to some of you. And I think all of us are grateful to be spending time with somebody if that’s possible for Thanksgiving, to be understanding and considerate of those who don’t have anybody and have nowhere to go. And I say to those of you who are in that situation, I want you to know that you are loved. And even though I don’t know you personally, you share this planet with me.
Michael Moore [00:10:11] You share humanity with me. And that’s enough right there for me to express my love for you and my care for you. And my hope is that I want to share with you that we will make things better. We will round the bend here at some point. I do believe that and I believe that we will come out of this. OK. So let me just begin by saying that and then secondly, before we go to your letters, let me just deal with a whole batch of letters that are pretty much all the same, which is: it seems hopeless to be able to convince certain family members or friends to see the light. And I think probably a lot of people have given up. Of course, the first thing I want to say to you is: we’ve already had six Thanksgivings since Trump announced he was running for president back in ’15. So you’ve had many of these people over for Thanksgiving for about six years in a row now? I guess maybe my first question is why? Why are you putting yourself through this kind of misery? And I know the answer. They’re family, you have to love them, we don’t choose our family.
Michael Moore [00:11:28] We’re born into a family. And it’s ah, hopefully good. But, you know, sometimes it’s not good, and we didn’t get to have a say in that. So we make the best of it. And I know that’s what a lot of you have tried to do over these last few Thanksgivings. Should we invite the numskulls? Yes, we have to invite the numskulls. They’re our family, we love them, et cetera. So anyways, I get it. Family is why they’re still coming. But you have written to me, in once again sheer dread, for what this day is going to look like. And you’ve given up on trying to convince them of anything, and I could understand that. But I want to point something out to you. If you feel that they can’t change that they’re so far gone, let me remind you that they weren’t always this way, especially those that you grew up with or whatever. And you remember them as liberals or Democrats or whatever. And then they made this weird switch, and all of a sudden, they’re watching Fox News and they’re voting for Trump.
Michael Moore [00:12:30] You know, let me tell you something: Trump and Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones did not win your friends and family over by shaming them, by belittling them, they were won over by this visceral connection that these right-wingers established with them. They figured out how to reach them and touch them. And my point I want to make to you before I offer my advice here is that if they were turned once toward Fox News and Trump and all this, what that means is that they can be turned again. They were able to make a grand switch. They can make a grand switch again. And you can be part of that. Not by shaming them, not by arguing with them, not by telling them they’re idiots, but by finding a way to hold your hand out to them. They will not change at the dinner table. Do not expect that. But there will come a point in time where they realize that they’ve been lied to. That the orange one with this long red tie, it will finally get into their heads, wait a minute, he’s fully vaccinated. Well, what am I listening to here?
Michael Moore [00:13:56] They’ll realize the con, some of them at some point, and I want them in that moment, where they’re thinking of making the switch again, to the light, I want them to remember your kind and loving face at Thanksgiving. Your hand held out to them. Even though you were in vehement disagreement with each other on these things. Now, you cannot have false hope on this. Most of them will not change. But some will. Some will and you could be a part of that. You can argue and you can have a debate, that’s all fine. It’s good, it’s American, but you can also use your sense of humor. Or your sardonic sense of things. You can say things while you’re laughing and smiling that may make some sense to them. So just as an overall thing here that I encourage you to not get all wound up.
Michael Moore [00:14:59] First of all, you don’t need to. You know why: there’s more of us than there are of them. They can have all the cranberry sauce they want at the table. There will never be again in our lifetime, more of them than us. That’s over. That’s why they have to rig the vote. That’s why they’ve got to rig the vote; I mean, I’m talking about gerrymandering. I’m talking about voter suppression, making it hard for people to vote. They have to do these things because they no longer have the majority of the American people. All right. So I have asked our executive producer, Basel Hamdan, to join us because he’s got the mailbag. Great letters. And we also have some voicemails that some of you left. So Basel’s going to read the letters and will play a couple of the voicemails. But Basel? Are you there with your bag of mail?
Basel Hamdan [00:15:49] I am here with the bag of mail.
Michael Moore [00:15:51] Do you want to add anything to what I started with and how we should deal with people in general at Thanksgiving dinner?
Basel Hamdan [00:15:59] I think in general and I’ve been in some of these, you know, Thanksgiving brouhahas as well, I think it is always best to be, particularly knowing that not everyone at the table cares for politics or wants to be part of this conversation, be as agreeable and good and nice as possible, particularly for the kids who are at the table or at the kids table right next to you. Ultimately, the best way to win people over is if they think that you’ve got your head on straight, you’re nice and whatever, you know, tax policy debate you’re having or whatever inside baseball, political hot button issue of the moment you’re having, may be less important to winning them over and having them grow up to be on your side than the fact that, oh, he was the loving one. He was the caring one. He was the one who wanted good things for everyone and not just himself or for his faction.
Michael Moore [00:17:07] Think about what Basel is saying here, because I do believe that how we behave at the table, the kids down at the other end of the table, the young kids, but also the tweens and teens. They need to see that we’re the more sane ones at the table, that we’re not half cocked crazy on this or that or whatever. And we’re not hating on anybody. I think just setting that tone is one of the best ways to win over not crazy Uncle Ned, but the other people at the table. Maybe they’re not very political as adults, so they haven’t made up their minds or especially the young people, who may say, I’m not going to grow up like Uncle Ned, you know. And you will have done a service to mankind and womankind, if the young people, if that’s their takeaway from this Thanksgiving brouhaha. Alright, so who do we have up here? Who’s our first letter from?
Basel Hamdan [00:18:11] First one is from Sarah. She says, Hey, Mike, crazy relative topic for Thanksgiving. BLM. They claim, her family members, that it’s a terrorist organization because they saw looting for hours on Fox and Newsmax, and they say that police kill more white people than Black people. Actually, very few Black people get killed by the police. Thanks, Mike.
Michael Moore [00:18:36] Right? Yes, I’ve heard this one. Well, I would say to you, first of all, one way to get them off a topic is just confuse them with these acronyms. There’s so many letters of the alphabet being thrown around when they say that BLM is a terrorist organization, you can quickly come back with saying, You know, and Aunt Mabel, I think you’ve got BLM confused with LGBTQ, and they won’t be able to get through half those letters, but they will hear the B and the L and say those are the terrorists. Now, of course, the danger of that is you don’t want them thinking gay people are terrorists. But sometimes I found just to help confuse the issue by throwing out more acronyms is always a good way to win the argument. The larger issue that she’s raising, though, is…?
Basel Hamdan [00:19:31] BLM is a terrorist organization because she sees looting on TV.
Michael Moore [00:19:38] OK, so how do we deal with this? Because obviously, oh my God, we’re all so fortunate to have Black Lives Matter at the forefront of these last couple of years. But when they go to Fox News, it’s like a thing with them, they’ve got a button there. On Fox News, if you say BLM, all of a sudden, somebody hits a button and cities are burning. Yes, it’s like the fear, the public enemy fear of a Black Planet? Yeah. So that’s right there in their heads. And how would you deal with that?
Basel Hamdan [00:20:20] Well, whenever BLM comes up, I mean, it’s just…
Michael Moore [00:20:25] They’re talking amongst white people now.
Basel Hamdan [00:20:39] Exactly, exactly. Any non-Black groups, including, you know, tables like my Arab Thanksgiving table. The best thing to do is step back. And I think the best way to win people over and at least get some agreement on your side is to explain to people why we say Black Lives Matter. If we can just step back and explain why we say it, I mean, just from the gecko, they took BLM and turned it into, No, but all lives matter. Even Martin Luther King said that everyone should be the same and blah blah blah. We need a step back. And if you’re dealing with someone who hates the concept of BLM and is very against it, just ask them, like should a Black person’s life matter as much as mine or as much as yours? And I think they’ll feel compelled to say yes.
Michael Moore [00:21:48] Yeah, if you say to the uncle, does a Black life matter as much as yours, boy, he will lose the rest of the room if he says, Yeah, my life matters more than their life. No, he’s going to say, Yes, of course, a Black life matters as much as mine. And then you just say to him, Imean, if I get what you’re saying here, that’s all we’re really saying here, then. Black Lives matter. Just admit that Black Lives Matter, and it doesn’t mean that white lives don’t matter, because that’s kind of a given, isn’t it, in white society?
Basel Hamdan [00:22:19] Yeah, we’re saying Black Lives Matter, because that currently is not the reality. Currently, Black lives are treated as disposable, less than. So yes, we want all lives to matter. Therefore, that’s why we’re promoting the concept that Black lives do matter, because they are currently treated as disposable by police departments, but by all facets of our society. But if you can just reach across the aisle and get them to reach across and say, Acknowledge that yes, a Black person’s life should be valued as much as mine, that will be a good little victory right there to set the tone.
Michael Moore [00:23:12] I like little victories, because I think there are things you can get most of them now, not some of them, but most of them to agree with. OK, so you say you’re conservative and all that, but let me ask you some basic philosophical questions. Do you believe a woman should be paid the same as a man if she’s doing the same job? Very few people are going to, even if they want to say no, yeah, women should be paid less, they’re not going to say that out loud if they want to win the table. Right? I mean, most conservatives are going, Oh, of course, women, they’re doing the same job, they should be paid the same. And you can start going down a little. You want to drink clean water, right, and breathe clean air. Yes, I do. Of course. Well, then you care about the environment. You are in your own way an environmentalist.
Basel Hamdan [00:24:38] If you can’t win them over on clean water, then you may as well shift the topic to…
Michael Moore [00:24:45] To the Detroit Lions. Hey, isn’t the Lions game on?
Basel Hamdan [00:24:49] Well, that’s a losing discussion for everyone except the Lions.
Michael Moore [00:24:53] And, of course, only a few in Michigan still are in support of the Lions. Most of us have switched to Green Bay, but now I’ve got a problem with Aaron Rodgers, so I don’t know where we are going. Do you have a team here we can get behind? Seattle maybe? I don’t know.
Basel Hamdan [00:25:08] Well, they’re struggling. I mean, my Giants and Jets are struggling…
Michael Moore [00:25:14] See, look how we just did it. We’re off to football now. All right. What’s next here?
Basel Hamdan [00:25:17] Jordan, he says, Hey, Mike, I’m expecting certain family members to say that Kyle Rittenhouse was justified in his actions because there were windows to protect and he was in fear for his life. So Rittenhouse is going to come up a lot on Thanksgiving.
Michael Moore [00:25:36] That feels like a tough one. But it shouldn’t be because when I would say right away is, OK, so you hate the police and Uncle Bob go, What do you mean? No, you’re hating on the police, if you’re saying that you want 17 year olds with AR-15s to just be showing up from out of state to protect our town, that the police in our town aren’t good enough. That’s what you just said. You think Kyle Rittenhouse did the right thing and the people of Kenosha did the right thing by letting him off, because we want teenagers from towns in other states bringing their assault weapons to our town and patrolling the streets. What’s Uncle Bob going to say to that? But you set the terms of the debate by saying, So let me just get this straight. You think that’s a good thing? Seventeen year olds coming from other states patrolling our streets in our town with an AR-15 because the police here suck. Do you hate the police? You want to defund the police? Why do you want the Kyle Rittenhouses to come to our town with their assault weapons?
Basel Hamdan [00:26:42] You could do this. If you’ve got a 16, 17, 18 year old at the table that everyone in the family knows not to trust with, you know, ordering a cup of coffee, let alone an AR-15, say, Imagine, Steve over there, you know, walking into this room now with an AR-15 and his hat backward and a grin on his face like, Oh yeah…
Michael Moore [00:27:10] What if he walked in here right now with an AR-15. Our cousin, little Stevie.
Basel Hamdan [00:27:16] Yeah, there’s a common sense argument to be made here about: will our streets and our neighborhoods and our lives be safer with more Kyle Rittenhouses patrolling the streets with AR-15s or will there be more casualties, more death and more destruction? I think common sense will let people know that we want fewer Kyle Rittenhouses.
Michael Moore [00:27:47] I have a theory, you know. He couldn’t buy the gun because he was 17, so he got somebody to buy the gun for him. And I mean, right away, because we made “Bowling for Columbine” and we’ve studied this issue quite a bit. When a teenager can’t get a gun and they get a slightly older person to get them the gun, we know what’s coming next, don’t we? I mean that gun is going to be used in high school. And especially if it’s an assault weapon like that, they’re not going deer hunting. And so I have this theory, frankly, that the gun was bought for those purposes. So all of a sudden, a riot is happening in Kenosha. He sees this (and this is just a theory now). But if he was planning to do a school shooting, this kept him from doing it. He said, No, no, no, I’m going to take this gun and go to Kenosha. I’ll take care of business there. And sadly, two people died. But man, what if the Kenosha riot prevented Kyle Rittenhouse from going and shooting up his school, which could have been the original plan? Why was he in need of an assault weapon when there was no rioting going on in Kenosha?
Basel Hamdan [00:29:35] Well, that could be our big talking point right there when BLM comes up.
Michael Moore [00:29:40] Right? In other words, Oh, so you don’t like BLM? Well, Kyle Rittenhouse does, grandpa. What do you think of that? So now you just said you were in favor of Kyle Rittenhouse. Now you’re against Kyle Rittenhouse.
Basel Hamdan [00:29:54] Which one is it, grandpa?
Michael Moore [00:29:55] Which one is it? Because we’re not going to eat pumpkin pie. We’re not going to eat the minced meat pie until you straighten this out, because we’ve confused the tweens down to being future gun owners of America at the other end of the table here…
Basel Hamdan [00:30:09] Kyle Rittenhouse is for BLM. What a world.
Michael Moore [00:30:15] Well, you know, it’s why occasionally you have to turn on Fox just for the trippy factor of it. Like, am I on drugs? No, I’m not. Oh, that just happened. He just said that. Or comedy. There’s just pure comedy constantly on Fox. You can’t make a parody of it because it’s a parody of itself. But OK, so who’s our next letter from?
Basel Hamdan [00:30:37] It is from Tom in New Jersey, who asks, My partner’s son in law, who calls himself a libertarian and a Trump supporter. She will have to deal with this guy at Thanksgiving. He’s always right, never wrong, and becomes very argumentative and pompous. Please tell me what to do.
Michael Moore [00:30:56] OK, I got a good one for this. The best way to dismantle the libertarian is to agree with him on practically everything, because on many things, they’re absolutely right. And I used to say 50 percent of what they are for is fantastic. And 50 percent is batshit crazy. But don’t say that. I would just say to the libertarian at the table, I can’t tell you how much I love you and support you. They don’t support invading other countries. Illegal wars, all this stuff. They don’t believe we should be the policeman of the world. That’s a libertarian position. That’s a good position. Agree with them. Tell them thank you for that. They don’t believe the government has any say over what a woman wants to do with her reproductive organs. Thank them for that. That is exactly the way it should be. And then they’ll say their great line, No government in our bedroom. Keep the government out of our bedroom. Yes, of course. And say to them and no wiretapping…You know, you can marry the person you’re in love with, the libertarian will go,.
Michael Moore [00:32:20] Absolutely doesn’t not matter what the gender is. So this will sound almost like a love fest at the table. People will start digesting their food properly. The argument with grandpa is over. He’s still trying to figure out what the BLM thing has to do with the LGBTQ. And you know, you’re now getting your sister, who has brought her libertarian boyfriend to dinner, and she’s so happy that everybody loves him until…what is it? Where is the libertarian? All of a sudden they’ve got the room and then the wheels go off the drain.
Basel Hamdan [00:32:59] Well, they don’t want to pay taxes.
Michael Moore [00:33:02] Yes, I don’t want to pay taxes. What? Well, nobody wants to pay taxes. But come on. You know, what about the streets? What about the roads? How are you going to get home tonight? And then the smarter libertarians will go, Well, now of course, there are some things the government has to do. Government has to fix the roads and the streets and streetlights. Otherwise, we’d be running into each other. And there has to be police. There has to be water and sewage. Like the basics, right? That’s what they’ll say. But not all this other stuff. And what is the other stuff that they are like, they do not want their hard earned money going to any of this other stuff?
Basel Hamdan [00:33:48] Well, I like how you started this. It goes back to what you said earlier about, and this is especially true of the libertarians, we can find a lot of common ground here. Yes, we can really…
Michael Moore [00:34:04] You’re not just a libertarian, you’re a libertarian with a heart. They like that. You’re not going to punch down on people, are you?
Basel Hamdan [00:34:13] You can go to ACLU.org with them and sign up to become card carrying members of the American Civil Liberties Union together. That’ll be a great Thanksgiving victory right there to sign up a new member of the ACLU.
Michael Moore [00:34:29] And then ask sort of the esoteric question of, So why don’t people vote libertarian? And then and then pause for a second? He’s going to not want to say it. You don’t want food for the poor, the hungry, You don’t want your tax dollars going to all that stuff there. And he’s got to say, Well, yeah, we’re not the nanny state. We shouldn’t be having to feed people. People can feed themselves. And the more he’ll go down that road…
Basel Hamdan [00:35:05] With conservatives, it may be tougher, but with people who call themselves libertarians, the more you can state your beliefs, your positions that are just common sense, and the more you get them to say, Yeah, I agree with that, then the better off you are. And the better off the table is to just state these points of common ground that we have.
Michael Moore [00:35:28] But we don’t want young people going and signing up for the Libertarian Party.
Basel Hamdan [00:35:32] No, we want them signing up for the ACLU.
Michael Moore [00:35:38] There’s one thing we can all agree on, right? No government in the bedroom. Come on, folks. Yeah, and also libertarians are against mass incarceration.
Basel Hamdan [00:35:48] So think about all the post-9/11 government spying, government surveillance, illegal searches and seizures, mass incarceration and all abuses within the criminal justice system. They should be on board with us. So there’s a lot of common ground to have there.
Michael Moore [00:36:11] What’s our next letter here?
Basel Hamdan [00:36:12] So this next question is from Marie-Claude. She says, Hi, I’m Canadian from Quebec. I’ve been in the U.S. for over 20 years and became an American to vote for the first female president. How quaint in hindsight. My question is: How do I answer my family and friends from back home when they ask, Why are you still there? We live in Oakland, California.
Michael Moore [00:36:37] So that’s my question too.
Basel Hamdan [00:36:38] Well, she left her phone number here. So we can really dial her up and see…
Michael Moore [00:36:46] Can we do it? We have time.
Basel Hamdan [00:36:50] Yeah, that shouldn’t be too hard. Let me just call her and see if she happens to pick up.
Michael Moore [00:37:05] Hey, Marie. It’s Michael Moore. I got your letter, and I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time here.
Marie-Claude [00:37:15] But yeah, we’re in a cab going to the airport.
Michael Moore [00:37:17] Oh, for Thanksgiving, right?
Marie-Claude [00:37:20] Complicated because Canadian Thanksgiving is not in November. It’s in October. So actually we came here to Brooklyn…
Michael Moore [00:37:29] We all know that the real Thanksgiving is in November, not October, right?
Marie-Claude [00:37:34] Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Michael Moore [00:37:37] Thank you for going along with that and everything else you have to put up with down here. But OK, I just thought that we should call you because your family is going to pose a good question to you, which they have already posed to you in the past. Yeah, considering everything that’s been going on in the United States, certainly in the last five years, yes, but I can take it back before that. But let’s just say the last five years. Yeah. Let me ask you, why are you still here?
Marie-Claude [00:38:13] Oh, it’s complicated. So we’ve been here for over 20 years, and you know, we’ve been through good times here and we have three kids here. So we live in Oakland and they kind of have their roots there. So it would be hard to leave. And we’re all questioning, what are we doing here? There’s some wonderful things in the U.S. and then there’s madness that is really hard to put those two together. And then I go back home and, you know, but it’s complicated.
Michael Moore [00:38:58] Right, right. No, I understand that. And so there’s obviously a lot of things about the United States that you like. Yeah. Well, maybe not a lot…
Marie-Claude [00:39:08] I love that in the U.S. in general, the space in front of you is open. There’s no limit to what you can do. And people are celebrating innovation. They’re celebrating work, they’re celebrating advancement. And it’s a very open society in that regard. And so that’s very enticing to stay because of that.
Michael Moore [00:39:34] Why did you originally come here?
Marie-Claude [00:39:36] My husband got a job in New York. I lived in New York for five years and then I followed him. Had kids and I stopped working when we became a family with kids.
Michael Moore [00:39:46] Is he Canadian?
Marie-Claude [00:39:47] Yes. He’s also Canadian from Montreal.
Michael Moore [00:39:52] So when others ask me this question that you posed, what should I say to them? How do they answer to their relatives, whether they’re in Canada or Africa, wherever they’re at, after what they’ve seen in other countries? Even post Trump now. I mean, this crazy week we’re in with all these trials of racial violence. You know what? What should I say? What kind of advice can I give people to give their families back home?
Marie-Claude [00:40:29] So my take on it is a little bit different. We have three kids and two of our kids are African-American boys. And so what I do think and what I’ve discovered through living here for 20 years and learning about the heritage of the African-American community to be a better parent, you know, what I’ve learned is that pretty much everything in the U.S. is based on race and that this backlash is whenever there’s a tiny little amount of advancement.
Marie-Claude [00:41:01] There has been advancement and we need to acknowledge that. Obama was elected. There is a better white awareness of racial issues. And George Floyd is part of, you know, this is the first time we’ve seen so many white people waking up. There have been some advancements. But this country, my take on it: Each time, there’s a little bit of advancement that could help the African-American community, there’s a big backlash. And the backlash comes from all different places. And so we go back a little bit. And my take on it is right now we’re going back a little bit. This was too scary for too many people with too much money and power. And so they’re reacting. So this is how I rationalize it. I don’t know if it makes sense.
Michael Moore [00:41:56] No, I understand. And I think, you know, we’re lucky to have people from other countries. Like yourself and your husband, every little bit helps in terms of just listening to you and your attitudes about this. You know, I often say to people, I wish we were more Canadian. And that doesn’t mean Canada doesn’t have its own problems.
Marie-Claude [00:42:22] Oh, totally.
Michael Moore [00:42:24] Well, it’s really good. I know you’re in this cab and you’re on the way to the airport. Thank you for taking this call because I just wanted to hear the question your relatives ask you, Why are you here? And I thought that was beautifully put. And importantly, what you had to say in terms of the work that is still in front of us? Thanks for joining in on that work as residents of this country. And I guess you had your kids here, so now you do have Americans in the family.
Marie-Claude [00:42:59] Yes, we do. So we’ll keep staying positive and trying to do whatever we can do to make things better.
Michael Moore [00:43:14] Right. Thank you for that. Thanks for your own personal courage with that.
Marie-Claude [00:43:20] Very sweet.
Michael Moore [00:43:21] No, no, thanks for taking this time. And happy real Thanksgiving here.
Marie-Claude [00:43:28] Happy Thanksgiving to you too.
Michael Moore [00:43:31] OK. Thanks, Marie, and thanks to your husband.
Marie-Claude [00:43:34] Okay, bye bye.
Michael Moore [00:43:38] All right, OK, so what do we have? What do we have coming up?
Basel Hamdan [00:43:41] So Maureen says, Hey Mike, here’s one I’ve struggled with from my nephew. Her nephew tells her, I’m not anti-vaccine. I’m just anti-mRNA vaccines, which you do know causes long term damage to our immune systems. So Maureen’s wondering, I don’t know how to answer this in a clear, succinct way, right?
Michael Moore [00:44:07] Other than saying, Oh, Doctor Nephew, I didn’t know that you’ve been to medical school or you’re a scientist now. I’m just curious, which class did you learn this in at Alex Jones University? I mean, you don’t want to ridicule. Boy, oh boy. What is the thing to say?
Basel Hamdan [00:44:27] Well, I mean, you’ve done a few episodes on this, including the episodes where you’ve gotten your shot. I mean, the interesting thing with and this is true of me, too, skepticism for big pharma, the government and the media is…
Michael Moore [00:45:01] Yeah, to me I’ll call it the Trump vaccine. I’m going to have to study this before, I’m not going to be a guinea pig in Trump’s little thing. He’s rushing this to get reelected. That’s what I thought. But, you know, I didn’t realize…once I did my research and I saw they didn’t just start working on this when COVID happened last year. They’ve been working on a coronavirus vaccine since the SARS epidemic in 2003. So this isn’t a new thing. This wasn’t done fast. It’s almost 20 years. They’ve been working on this. Then I understood that, Oh, they’re not putting coronavirus in me like they do when they give you your polio shot. There’s a tiny speck of polio in there. There’s a tiny speck of smallpox.
Michael Moore [00:45:48] That’s the way they always used to do it. And so this woman, essentially the scientist who started working on this a long time ago, couldn’t get any support for it or whatever. She was saying that there’s actually a way where we don’t have to put a speck of the disease in our bodies to create a vaccine. There’s a way we can create essentially a mirror and we can train the body to recognize what they think is coronavirus and fight against it. And I’m not a doctor like your nephew is, but you know, that’s the way I’ve tried to explain it to people. Skepticism is good. We all should be skeptical. I was not first in line for this. I was going to read as much as I could read and talk to doctors and scientists, and we had them on our podcast here.
[00:46:53] We had Ezekiel Emanuel from the National Institute of Health. We had Dr. Redlener here from Columbia University. Dr. Hotez from Houston. And then the Pulitzer Prize winning author, Laurie Garrett. I mean, we’ve had a lot of people on this to discuss it. I’ve done my own private talking to doctors and scientists because I wanted to know really what the truth was. And I wasn’t going to go on just my own emotional reaction. Oh, Trump’s got a fast vaccine here, yeah, right?! Isn’t that the dictionary definition of being a liberal: that you have an open mind, you want to learn, you want to see all sides. But you know, I would just say to the anti-vaxxers at the table, I would just explain to them, in the town I live in Michigan, you know, 95 percent of the people now in the intensive care are people who were not vaccinated and they’re in there with serious COVID.
Michael Moore [00:48:04] 98 percent of those who are dying now are people who were not vaccinated. It’s pretty clear that you are putting yourself and your family at great risk if you don’t get vaccinated and if this vaccine was a wrong-headed idea, sidewalks would be littered with the bodies of people who’ve gone and gotten their vaccine. And that is not what we know has happened. And so the science is in on this, and I got my shots and I encourage others to do it. So what message is there, anything I can add here to help her at the table?
Basel Hamdan [00:48:45] Just from personal experience, the great sense of relief I felt after getting my second shot. Such a great feeling after a year of pandemic. You know, there’s fear of, you know, my arm might hurt. I might get sick for a day or two. Yes, that may happen. And it’s minor and it’s easy to get through. But overall, the sense of relief that I feel, a freedom that I felt and I know a lot of people have felt that too.
Michael Moore [00:49:22] And I think if you tell you the story that Basel was just telling about getting the shot at the table. Come on. You know, you’re our family, we wouldn’t be telling you to do this if we thought we were going to be…
Basel Hamdan [00:49:34] And they should see that, Hey, I haven’t grown a third arm or horns or my skin hasn’t turned green. It’s like, Listen, tens of millions of people are getting this. And as you said, the streets are not littered with bodies of vaccinated. Sadly, the hospitals there are filled with people who are unvaccinated.
Michael Moore [00:49:58] There’s no chip being put in us. It’s right at that point, though, that the unvaccinated person at the table says, Yeah, then what’s Bill Gates doing here at our Thanksgiving!?! Everybody turns down to the end of the table and there is fucking Bill Gates sitting there and is like, Don’t bother with me, just pass the cranberry sauce. No, give me the stuffing! I said, What the fuck is Bill Gates someone here? Geez. And there’s the face of Bill and Melinda Gates on your upper arm, the rest of your life. What do you do with that, Basel?
Basel Hamdan [00:50:41] I hear this is what their divorce was over, how they were depicted on these tattoos that were all going to happen.
Michael Moore [00:50:49] Yeah. Well, he didn’t want her. He didn’t want her on the tattoo. He only wanted himself. And like, Wait a minute, I’m part of this. You know, I developed this foundation. I’m the one that’s doing all this good for the world, trying to get rid of malaria and all that, and I want my face on people’s arms.
Basel Hamdan [00:51:03] This next question is, Hey, Mike, I want to ask you if you think we are honestly going to be able to save the planet from global warming? Or has it gone too far? Because that will be our discussion at the Thanksgiving table. And that’s from Robert Alvarado.
Michael Moore [00:51:24] Wow, that’s a rough one. Because, look, the U.N. has already told us it’s too late in the sense of stopping the amount per million of carbon in the air, in the atmosphere. They warned us that we were going to get near the end very soon and we did. And just a couple of months ago, they told us that now what we have to do is try and make it from getting any worse and trying to figure out what the mitigating factors are, how we survive it? I guess basically the question is: can we go back to being a better planet? How do we survive the planet we’ve created? That’s a discussion that’s worthy of having because, again, the planet is not going to collapse.
Michael Moore [00:52:19] But there are things that we need to do to protect ourselves. The fires, the floods, the hurricanes, all the stuff, the oceans dying on us. We have to fix this. We have to get on top of this right now. Probably too late to get back the atmosphere that we had had for, you know, billions of years. That may be gone. Now how do we live on a planet like this that we’ve helped to create? I think that’s a worthy discussion to have. Is that going to bring things down or are people not going to get to the pies, if we have this talk.
Basel Hamdan [00:52:56] When it comes to conserving the planet, conserving trees, conserving species, conserving our waterways, we should be able to find common ground with anyone and everyone who we’re seated with at the table when it comes to just that part of what we’re dealing with when it comes to the environment. So this could be another issue where we find common ground and as far as the climate projections and all that stuff, I mean, listen, we’re human beings and we are built to survive.
Basel Hamdan [00:53:35] We will do whatever it takes to survive. We have reflexes. We have reflexes to keep ourselves alive and unhurt. And as bad as things will get and as much of a point of no return as we’ve gotten to, we will continue to adapt and do what we must to survive. And that must include, you know, taking care of our environment, weaning off of fossil fuels, taking care of different species. So perhaps there are ways to talk about these things in ways that can unify people that don’t share your politics.
Michael Moore [00:54:22] Yeah, because I think everybody at the table will agree that we have to survive. So just make it about survival. How are we going to survive and how can we all as a family, as friends, what can we do after Thanksgiving?
Basel Hamdan [00:54:39] [00:54:39]What can we do? [0.3s] Michael, neither you nor I are vegan or vegetarian, but I think many in our audience are. So we would be remiss to say that if there were a vegan or vegetarian on this podcast with us, they would say: Step one at the Thanksgiving table is to have a vegan Thanksgiving vegan.
Michael Moore [00:55:04] So yeah, we need to eat less meat. I’ve already started that. Do you eat the same amount of beef you ate?
Basel Hamdan [00:55:13] No, no. I mean, that’s more for my personal survival. Not for the planet’s survival. But yes, I do.
Michael Moore [00:55:23] You are part of the planet, Basel. We need you to survive.
Basel Hamdan [00:55:26] Fair, fair. So yes, I do eat much less meat
Michael Moore [00:55:30] Do we have voicemails?
Basel Hamdan [00:55:31] We do. Let’s start with this one.
Patricia [00:55:36] Hi, Michael, this is Patricia. I have a daughter and a son in law that’s very right wing, and they believe the world is ending and we’re going to run out of food and China is behind it all. And I don’t plan on spending Thanksgiving Day with them this year. But I just don’t know why this happened to my daughter or even my son. Well, what can I do to try to get through to her? Or can I? Thank you for any advice. It just breaks my heart. I didn’t raise my daughter to think like this. Thank you.
Michael Moore [00:56:20] Wow, OK. And I hear a lot of this Basel. This is not uncommon. You know, whether it’s sons and daughters talking about their parents, they can’t believe how they watch nothing but watch Fox News. And they’ve gone bonkers. Or parents who cannot believe their kids, who were raised in the modern world and know the truth about these things and yet have somehow gone to the dark side. Well, first of all, let me say to you, Patricia, that I’m very sorry that this has happened. I know how much you love them and how it breaks your heart. And I’m sorry they’re not coming for Thanksgiving, because even though it’s maybe annoying for us to listen to people that see the world in a different way, you don’t want to lose touch with them. You don’t want to shut the door.
Michael Moore [00:57:13] You want that door open because, you know, as I said at the beginning, just as much as they switched over to these crazy beliefs, it means that they can switch back. And there will come a day, perhaps, where they will just say, This is nuts. You know, what we believe is nuts. Why or how did we fall for this? We need to call mom and tell her she was right and we’re sorry. You want to be there for that day, don’t you? I would say, don’t shut the door, but love is always a path. Love them up. Love them. Care for them. Take care of them. Be there for them. They’ll remember that when that day comes, when they realize, holy shit, we’ve got to get our act together here because the country is a democracy. But it’s dying, the planet’s dying. We need to do this.
Basel Hamdan [00:58:12] That’s powerful, Michael. That’s great. That’s great advice and there’s nothing really to add to that, except I hope that, as sad as Patricia may feel for her family members, I hope she doesn’t feel like a failure herself because there are very powerful forces out there that have…
Michael Moore [00:58:38] That is at work on her sons and daughters brains.
Basel Hamdan [00:58:42] Exactly, exactly. You could be the greatest, most thoughtful parent in the world. And these forces will still get to children, get to other human beings. It’s just the way it is. So as much as it hurts to see a family member go astray, you shouldn’t beat yourself up over it. If you just keep, as Michael says, extending that and be there for them. And you know…
Michael Moore [00:59:25] Everybody becomes their own person and you can’t beat yourself up. And don’t blame yourself for this. More than likely, you were great parents, and they have a great chance of coming back if you stay great parents.
Basel Hamdan [00:59:45] We got another voicemail here.
Michael Moore [00:59:47] Hey, Michael, this is William Rivera. A young, gay progressive. I’m a part of a pretty conservative religious family. And I’m wondering if you have any tips or any way I can carefully articulate my worldview to them as they don’t often see eye to eye with my thoughts and views on our ever changing world. I appreciate it.
Michael Moore [01:00:17] Hmm. Wow. Well, what I would say to you, first of all, is that it sounds like there’s a disagreement. They don’t agree with you. So you may have come out of the closet at some point in the past to your conservative parents. Let me just say for that, I thank you for that courage. This is what has turned, I think, the country around. So many LGBTQ people, especially young people, have come out to their family, to their friends, to their neighbors, to their classmates, coworkers. And it has done more to reduce the bigotry and discrimination against our gay population. Because you’ve been willing to say, Well, I’m gay too, or I’m lesbian too or I’m queer.
Michael Moore [01:01:09] You know the fact that you’ve done that – what they’re immediately thinking is, Well, wait a minute, but I love you, you’re a great neighbor. You’re like the best neighbor we’ve ever had. What are they going to do with that? Then start to hate you? No. Most will not. This is why all the poll numbers changed over a decade from this anti-gay, homophobic, no, they can’t marry each other attitude to where the majority of the country believes that same sex marriage is the absolute right thing to do for those who are in love with people. You are who you are. And you are to be loved for that. And I admire so many people that were willing to take that risk and tell people who they are. It’s helped us all.
Basel Hamdan [01:02:02] Larry Gibson asks, Hey Mike, how would you handle this opinion – we spent 50 years defeating communism. Now progressives want to bring it to America.
Michael Moore [01:02:13] There will be people at the table that will call Biden a socialist, a communist. You know, he wants to give away all these things. But just say to them, what does he want to give away? He thinks Medicare…does anybody have a problem with the elderly, including the elderly at this table, does anybody have a problem with them being able to hear? Should they be able to get a hearing aid if they need one? Does anybody have a problem with the old people who are at the table just wanting to see? That’s all they’re asking us. Can I see what’s going on? Is that okay, please? Is there something wrong that we can’t pay for their glasses, their eye exam?
Michael Moore [01:03:13] This is nuts. Or poor great grandpa at the end of the table is trying to chew his food, half his teeth aren’t there because Medicare doesn’t pay for the dentist. So Biden wants to do that. What a socialist. No, he’s not grandpa. How’s it going chewing the turkey? And then he becomes a food critic and says that your mom’s Turkey’s too tough, because his teeth don’t work. Come on. I think there’s a way to bring up some of these subjects with people who, even though they are not say on your side of the fence on things, they’re going to support some very basic things that we should all get behind that are in this this Biden bill, that hasn’t been passed yet by the Senate or the House. Let’s get our elderly people this. Is there something wrong with pre-K? Anybody got a problem with that, really? No. Why not? Yeah, because the rest of the industrialized world has it. It’s a reason we can’t have our kids get a head start, get a leg up. Why do they have to fall behind? Come on, we all support this. This is not communism for crying out loud. Come on.
Michael Moore [01:04:50] Well, I really appreciate all these emails and voicemails that all of you have sent, I can see there’s a lot more to go here about what to do with a conspiracy theorist at the table. But I think overall, just to repeat what I’ve said here today, they’re not the enemy. They’re your family. They’re your friends. Yes, they are. Some of them have gone cuckoo for cocoa puffs, but it doesn’t mean they can’t come back. They’re human. Maybe we haven’t done as good of a job as Fox News has done. Maybe facts have a harder time getting through than things that are made up. Maybe that does win the day sometimes.
Michael Moore [01:05:59] So let’s keep our arms open. Let’s keep our hearts open. Let’s not have the big blustery argument with them. Let the kids at the table see us as quiet, loving, decent open people that will do more to make this country, this planet a better place. To be open and to be kind. And to understand that facts mean something. Science means something, and the democracy that we barely have desperately means something. That’s the best way to celebrate this Thanksgiving, I think. It’s the best way to make it up to the native peoples that fed us that first meal. They felt sorry for us dying, shivering in the winter, dazed. Indians caught the disease, they died. You know, we can make it up to them. We’re sorry this lamb was taken from you. We’re sorry for the genocide that took place. We’re sorry for the Black human beings that were kidnaped and brought to this country in chains to build the country for white people. Sorry about all that. And here’s a few ways we can try to make it up to you. We can be more decent. We can fight for equality. We can stop injustice. We can speak out every time we have the chance to do that.
Michael Moore So to those of you who are on your way to Thanksgiving dinner, tomorrow or you maybe had it yesterday. We’re lucky to have you in our lives. An outstretched hand is never a bad thing. So be well, everyone, be good to yourselves, be good to others, have some great turkey and stuffing. I’ll try to do the same. We’ll come back next week. I’ll have a couple other subjects that I’ll put up on my site. Please sign up. Michael Moore.com. Just hit the free button. And together we can do this. There’s hundreds of thousands of you who listen to this podcast, who read my Substack and see this. We just passed our 30 millionth download of Rumble with Michael Moore. That’s friggin amazing. And I won’t let you down. I’ll do my part. You do your part. We’ll do this together. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. And I’ll see you soon here on Rumble with Michael Moore. Be well.