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To read more about Episode 264, visit the main episode page.

Michael Moore [00:00:18] This is the Emergency Podcast System. I am Michael Moore. I’m the host of Rumble with Michael Moore. It’s my podcast. This is a special emergency edition that we send out across the world when we have something that happens that needs to be dealt with. And one of those things happened this morning when Senator Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona, a Democrat from Arizona, announced that she was no longer a Democrat, that she has left the Democratic Party and has registered as an Independent. She’ll be an Independent. And I thought we should get into this. And I’ll share my feelings about it, what I think we all should do, will do. I know that a lot of you woke up to this this morning. Read this. Immediately felt heart palpitations, went into shock, perhaps coming on the heels just a couple of days after winning reelection there in Georgia for Senator Warnock and now the Democrats having a 51-49 majority now puts the Democrats back to 50-50. Still leaves them in control of the Senate. Vice President Kamala Harris will still have the deciding vote on any tie votes. 

[00:01:31] Let me get into this right away, because I’ve been reading your emails to me, your texts, your comments on social media, your comments on my Substack and I understand why you are as concerned as you are. But let’s just take a step back for a minute to the last two years of our lives as Americans with Senator Kyrsten Sinema. Honestly, when you read this or heard this this morning, can I get a show of hands of everybody who was surprised by this? Didn’t we think this was probably going to happen a lot sooner? I mean, it seemed that way, right? And the thorn that she became in the side of the Democrats blocking so much good legislation in the Senate — her and Joe Manchin. There’s nothing really new about this in terms of what we’ve come to expect. And I’m certain a lot of you thought, “Well, she’s probably just waiting till after the election,” and in some cases, “maybe waiting until after the runoff in Georgia so that she didn’t want to her legacy to be the person that handed the Senate to the Republicans.” So now that won’t happen, the Senate will be still in the hands of the Democrats. She’s also made it very clear this morning that she will not caucus with the Republicans. And I believe her on that. I think that as she’s often described by the kind of lazy journalism that we have in this country, as someone who is socially liberal, liberal on social issues, but conservative on financial issues — or more to the point, she’s more Libertarian on those issues. And certainly she is a rabid capitalist. She’s been described as the, “concierge in the Senate for the super rich.” One of her main political beliefs is the rich should have to pay as few taxes as possible. So she’s blocked everything that Biden has tried to do that would increase taxes on the rich. She is the go-to person when the super wealthy have something they want to try to get passed and they think they can get it through the Senate, they go to Kyrsten Sinema. So this is a very sad part of her. 

[00:03:55] But here’s the thing. And if you followed her before, I mean, remember, she used to be Green. She was very strong anti-war person in local politics in Arizona during the Iraq war. She’s flipped all over the map here. She’s been very erratic. And to some, she might seem a little crazy. But I don’t know if that’s fair, because if you’ve ever spent any time in Arizona, it’s one of our crazy states. And I don’t mean that to people live there. I don’t mean that in a negative way. I mean, first of all, let’s just admit we all have a little crazy in us so, you know, our crazy may just not be her crazy. But it’s a strange place. And so the white people there who’ve kind of lost a certain amount of their power have acted a little crazy over the last decade or two or three. You remember, Arizona was the one holdout state that would not pass any legislation approving our national holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. They were the last holdout on this. So if you’re old enough, you know Arizona to be this kind of bizarre place at times. It’s also, you know, it’s a very beautiful state. The Latino and Latina population and political activists from Arizona are incredible. They have incredible members of Congress. So all of that. 

[00:05:24] Now that knocking you’re hearing, that banging, somebody in the apartment next door’s hanging pictures or who knows what. If you live in an apartment building, you know the sound. I hope it’s not distracting. But when I read this this morning, I didn’t, you know, freeze or go into some state of shock. My first thought was, “Oh, thank God.” And I want to explain that. I want to tell you why I think this actually may be a good thing for us and possibly a way to help us get a real Democrat in there, because she’s up for reelection in 2024. There’s also a theory that she’s made a very smart move, because if she runs for reelection as an Independent, the Democrat who runs, she will pull a certain number of Democratic votes from that Democrat, and neither of them may win and the Republican could win. But we don’t need to get into that now. We’re not talking horse race here. We’re not going to be pundits about this. We’re going to just — let’s just look at the facts. And I want to share some facts about Kyrsten Sinema with you that may help you get through the rest of the day and enjoy your weekend. 

[00:06:45] Number one: she has voted with Biden 93% of the time. She’s voted in favor of whatever he and the Democrats have sent to the Senate 93% of the time. That’s better than four or five other Democrats that don’t vote that often with Biden. That’s more than Tester in Montana has voted with Biden. That’s more than the two Senators, including the one that was just reelected in Nevada — that’s more than they voted with Biden. She’s voted with Biden more than Bernie, and Bernie and Biden are like, you know, late night phone call pals with each other. I mean, understand, of course, that late night for them is somewhere around 8:30 in the evening, but, okay, Mike, no jokes. So, let’s understand that, first of all. As much as she’s done to block legislation, as much as she loves the filibuster and has refused to join with Democrats to stop the filibuster. Let’s just also be honest about that. Manchin and Sinema are not the only two Democrats in the Senate that want to keep the filibuster. The other Senators who do like the filibuster, who really don’t want to — they love that power, they don’t want to give it up. And they hide behind Manchin in Sinema, making it look like there’s just these two holdouts. I could tell you from my own research, my own conversations with people on the Hill, my own limited contacts with the few Representatives in the House and the Senate that I want to talk to or want to talk to me on a semi-regular basis, there’s at least another half dozen Democrats that, if push came to shove, would not vote to get rid of the filibuster. So we have to get rid of the filibuster. We have to make this one of our main things from this point on in all elections and hopefully will succeed. That’s my hope. And I think there’s a chance for that because, you know, the trend among the voters is toward Democracy. More Democracy, not less. The filibuster is a block against true Democracy. 

[00:09:07] So you know, the Kyrsten Sinema who woke up yesterday morning against the filibuster in favor of not taxing the super rich, is the same Kyrsten Sinema who woke up this morning and decided to change from being a Democrat to an Independent. Nothing has changed. She’s never going to be supportive of a lot of these things that we want to see happen. That’s only going to really change when she is removed, either because she decides not to run in 2024 or because she is voted out of office. So that’s our work. That’s not on her. That’s on us now. And we will do that work just as we did in this election, just as we did in 2020. That’s our job. But let’s go back to why I just don’t want people in a freak out right now over this. So part of this is she still the same Kyrsten Sinema, and part of it is the same Kyrsten Sinema means not only that she’s voted 93% of the time with Biden and the Democrats, she has a good relationship with Biden. They like each other. I thought he was very — his statement was this morning very conciliatory and supportive of her, as was Chuck Schumer’s. Now, again, Biden and Chuck Schumer, you know, we are not on the same page politically in the sense of the real things that we all stand for. And I’m not just talking about myself, but I think probably most of you listening to this might feel the same way, but still, I have been very umm… All right. They’re still banging away over there. Pounding nails or something. 

[00:10:57] Anyways, I’m not afraid to say when Biden is right and he’s been right a number of times and he’s succeeded. And Brittney Griner is back home, those last bills that we just thought were completely dead last year and then he got them through in the summer. Not the greatest bills, not the greatest gun bill, not the greatest… But still, he didn’t give up. He still pushed and he didn’t get 100% of what he wanted, he didn’t get 50% of what he wanted. But if he got 20%, you know, you take the 20% and you live to fight another day. Kyrsten Sinema twice voted to convict Donald Trump. Both times she voted to convict him and remove him from the White House. She’s not going to caucus with the Republicans. It’s not where the country is at. She knows that. It’s not where Arizona’s at. The Arizonans were very clear about they didn’t want the right winger Trump-backed Senator, they wanted to return Mark Kelly to the Senate. So the shift has happened. She’s not going to go against the shift. I mean, I can list a whole bunch of other things that she’s voted for. Even this week, you know, when we are just a couple of weeks away from not having both houses of Congress, she is trying to get the Dreamer Bill through — the DACA kids, the kids that were brought here as babies or young children and don’t have citizenship, but they’ve lived their whole friggin lives here in the United States. And she’s working with the Republican, Thom Tillis. They’ve written up a bipartisan bill. She’s bringing some Republicans along. I think they’ve got, by last count, five or six Republicans to make this a filibuster proof bill to get to ten. And she’s doing it by supporting things that you and I don’t support in terms of something short of Trump’s wall on the border, but spending more money on border security, catching people, etc., etc.. But she’s giving those things over to the Republicans in order to get 2 million kids, who are now adults a lot of them, their citizenship. That’s a good thing. And she’s working hard trying to pull this off in the next two weeks. That’s a good thing. 

[00:13:32] I know right now you’re saying to yourself, “Okay, Mike, is this your grandmother talking? You know, when she told you, if you can’t say something nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all.” No. No. And I love both of my grandmothers who are no longer with us. But I am saying this to us so that we — see we have to be able to function. We are in charge. We are the majority of this country. We pulled off this incredible tsunami, this Blue Wall that we created that stopped the red wave from drowning us. Can we stop with these waves and colors? We’re not going to stop, are we? No. Okay. So we’re very strong right now, even though it doesn’t seem like it. We hold a lot of the power, mainly because the majority of Americans agree with us on virtually every single issue. So we need to build on that. And in the coming days, I’m writing a couple of Substack columns right now that I will send to you about the lessons that I believe I’ve learned from these elections. And there are some serious lessons that we need to really understand, to try to set an agenda for our side for these next two years when the new Congress begins here on January 3rd, so that we don’t fall backwards. And I think we can have a good two years if we all are willing to work, and to work hard. I’m sorry to have to say it like that, because I know a lot of people were exhausted by this election. I think just Democracy is exhausting. I guess that’s you know, we could live in a totalitarian society and it, on some levels, would be less exhausting because Dear Leader, Heir Ruler, would just decide everything for us and we could just go about our business. Until Heir Ruler won’t let us go about our business, and suddenly, “Where’s Mike? Have you seen him around lately?” So we don’t want that, obviously. So, yes, we want Democracy and we want more Democracy and we’re going to get it. 

[00:15:47] So I think that, you know, it seems like Schumer, she’s worked out a deal with him even though she won’t caucus with them. But apparently when the Democrats have their weekly caucus, they get together in their room to talk, she rarely shows up. When she’s sitting there, you know, at her desk, she often gets up from her desk on the Senate floor and she likes to wander over and hang out with the Republicans. I don’t know if she’s just doing that to agitate the Democrats or whatever, but she doesn’t vote with them. It’s very, very, very rare. 7% of the time she’ll vote with them. It’s not really even 7% because, like Bernie, there are some things that she’s actually still quite left on. And she thinks Biden has compromised too much. So that’s the weird stew that you get with Kyrsten Sinema. You know, she’s made a deal with Schumer. He’s going to put her on some committees, not where she could do any damage. She’s already the chair of two subcommittees. Maybe she’ll get to keep that. I think that Schumer and Biden are doing the right thing. There’s no sense that just purposely antagonize her and push her away, you know? I mean, there really is the old saying of “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” And that is going to be the way that they’re going to deal with Kyrsten Sinema. And they will, of course, never talk about or consider her an enemy. So I think nothing’s really going to change here. She’s also, she has voted for every single judge that Biden has sent to the Senate. Every federal judge. She’s voted for all of Biden’s judges, including our newest Supreme Court Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson. So she will continue to do that. She will not block the judges that we need on these federal courts to replace these incredibly horrible Republican-appointed judges. 

[00:17:49] So all of that, I think, gives me relief. It should reduce your anxiety about this. If you’re thinking and saying to yourself, “Oh, boy, but what if Manchin goes?” Well, I think he would have done it by now. I don’t think that’s going to happen. He’s a different animal. He was actually upset at Sinema for holding up some of those final things that Biden was trying to get through last year or last summer. So I don’t think Manchin’s going anywhere. He’s a middle-of-the-road, just conservative Democrat, pro fossil fuel. Also, I don’t want to say that he’s pro wealthy because he also has been elected as Governor, a Senator, you know, very popular in West Virginia, because he does stand up for, often, the working people of West Virginia. And I think his own legacy, he wants to be remembered for that as a rich guy who threw a nice bone or two to the working class every now and then. So I don’t think we need to worry about that. And you know what? If that’s the worst case scenario that he switches, becomes a Republican — well, trusting that Kyrsten Sinema is true to her word, she won’t caucus with the Republicans. So it’ll still be 50 Senators that are going to essentially vote with the Democrats, even if Manchin goes to the other side. All that does is take the Republicans from having 49 votes to 50. And we’re back where we were, 50-50. We’re in charge. Kamala Harris is the deciding vote. 

[00:19:30] So let’s get our focus where it should be, and that is on the work that we need to start right away. We cannot wait until the next election season. We need to find the right candidates to run. Oh by the way, you’re going to hear from the pundits now. They’ve already started trying to depress your vote again by telling you that the Democrats of the 34 Senate seats that are up for reelection in 2024, 22 of those seats are currently held by Democrats. So the punditry is already trying to whip up your fear with, “Oh, my God, that’s impossible. We can’t lose a single Democrat. How are we going to keep 22 Democrats?” You know, and the word you’re going to hear is “vulnerable.” The Democrats are going to be “very vulnerable” in 2024. We’re always vulnerable. First of all, we can’t even figure out what our name is. Some of you call yourselves Democrats. Some say liberals, progressives, lefties, Independents who lean left, recovering Republicans who will never vote for a Republican again. I mean, it is a big tent. There’s a lot of people in it and we need to get busy with the work that we need to do. And I will start proposing some things and you’ll hear other things, so please don’t get yourself all wound up. Let’s just start with this, I’ll just say it now two years in advance — we are not vulnerable in 2024 to losing the United States Senate. Okay, go with that. Just go. Just go,” Mike. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, he’s right about. Yeah, I don’t know. But how could he say that two years in advance?” Well, I can’t really say it two years in advance. I’m not a predictor of elections here. And, you know, we’ll do our work. When we get close we’ll see what we’ve got to do. If we need to run candidates, we’ll run them. If we need the primary the wrong Democrats with the right Democrats we’ll do that. But for right now, let’s focus on the first quarter of 2023 and what we’re going to do with the majority that we have in the Senate and how we’re going to continue to discombobulate the very thin majority that the Republicans have, as of today, in the United States House of Representatives. Remember, on any bill, if we can get a bill on the floor because we’ve got enough votes, we only need four Republicans with us to have a majority of the United States House of Representatives. That’s it. Four of the 221 Republicans voting with us. There will be those votes that they will cast with us. I’ll say it again. A number of these Republicans got elected or reelected this past month in congressional districts that voted for Biden, in congressional districts that are now more Democratic, and have more Democratic registered voters than Republicans. If they want to get reelected in 2024, I don’t think they’re going to be voting against women’s rights. I don’t think they’re going to keep people working at $7.25 an hour. They’re going to have to vote with the Democrats. They’re going to have to defect. And remember, just as Kyrsten Sinema is doing this, there could be Republicans that have done this. Arlen Specter, a decade or so ago, Republican Senator from Pennsylvania, switched and became a Democrat. Jeffords from Vermont. He became an Independent, and caucused with the Democrats. This shit can change. And it does change — constantly change. So let’s be ready. Let’s be ready for the change. Let’s encourage the change. Let’s not be moping around like, “Oh, we lost Kyrsten Sinema.” You know, when you say something like that, you know you lost her a long time ago. And yet even in losing her, during all this time, she still votes 93% of the time with Biden and the Democrats. She voted to convict Trump. She takes the socially liberal position on most of these bills unless it affects the rich and their taxes. 

[00:23:53] So we’ll figure out what to do about that Arizona seat in the coming year or so here. But in the meantime, let’s get focused on the things that we need to make happen. And let’s start locally looking for the people we’re going to run in two years for the state House. For the state Senate in your state. For County Commission, for city council. All of that. Let’s start running some people that people want to vote for. Who is that beloved person in your community, in your district, in your state that people would love to vote for? Let’s start doing the casting call right now. Let’s start doing the candidate recruitment right now. And let’s be good to each other in this holiday season. Let’s be kind. Let’s think about what we can do to help those who have less than what we have. Let’s be ourselves. At the end of the day, it really isn’t about, oh, who’s the politician going to be or this or that or whatever, whether Kyrsten Sinema is a Democrat or an Independent or, you know, whatever she is. Let’s just be who we are. Let’s be good to each other. Let’s be good to those who are on the opposite side of things from where we’re at. You know, let’s actually live our daily lives and with the beliefs turning into actions. Being the way that we think and feel, let’s actually do. And I look forward to sending you my podcasts and I look forward to sending my Substack columns. I’ve got some good things planned here in the next few weeks. Be on the lookout for that. Promise me now that your breathing, your heart rate is at least below 80. Enjoy the rest of the day. Enjoy the weekend. In some ways, we got one less problem. If you choose to look at it that way. 

[ MUSIC: “Problem” — Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azalea ]

Michael Moore [00:26:21] Be well, everybody. Thank you, all of you, for listening on the day after I sent you our podcast on the Blue Tsunami that was successful here in many, many, many, many ways. Let’s keep that going. More Tsunamis. All right, my friends. Be well. Have a good weekend. Go see a movie. This is Michael Moore. This is Rumble, and this is the Emergency Podcast System.