TRANSCRIPT

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To read more about Episode 217, visit the main episode page.

Michael Moore [00:00:29] This is Rumble with Michael Moore, and yes, I am Michael Moore. Welcome everyone. Joining me here in just a few minutes on Rumble is the great journalist, internet poster and podcaster, David Sirota. We’re going to be discussing the very urgent 24 to 48 hours we’re right in the middle of right now regarding the human infrastructure bill that seems to be falling apart, the Biden bill in Congress. So we are hoping that there’s either going to be a breakthrough on our side here or this thing’s gonna get blown up. And what was supposed to have been a massive new deal-like piece of legislation to help the American people is just going to be smoke. I don’t want that to happen. I know you don’t either. 

Michael Moore [00:01:18] So we’re going to talk about that with David Sirota and what we can all do about it. First of all, also, I want to mention that we had an overwhelming response to my Sunday essay here on my Substack called Insurrectionist Envy. And wow, the responses. Thank you for the response. Many of you have commented and you’ve emailed me lots of new ideas, so I may write a follow up to this piece in the next week or so. We’ll see what the other reactions are, but I do hope this starts a peaceful rebellion. You know, silence is not an option right now. We’ve needed this for so long. We’ve needed to rise up nonviolently. Not like the January 6th people. But our voices, we are the majority, we have to be heard. 

Michael Moore [00:02:05] OK, welcome back here, and thanks again to our underwriters. Well, here we go. For the past few months, we, all of us, have been trying to be at least optimistic about the promise of the Biden administration and how we have an amazing opportunity to pass legislation that will greatly, greatly help the American people. You know what I’m talking about here? The bill that’s up this week. Hopefully, we’ve been hoping that most or all of this would pass. Major advances in health care, child care, education, the climate catastrophe. All of this got compiled together into what we’ve been calling the human infrastructure bill. And the price tag that was recently put on it was $3.5 trillion dollars. And the great thing about this is that it was being fully paid for by taxes on the wealthy. 

Michael Moore [00:05:24] But over the past couple of weeks, corporate America, their lobbyists, their mouthpieces in the mainstream media and their paid puppets in the United States Senate, yes, we will name names (Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, along with every single Republican, have been sucking the life out of this human infrastructure bill, and it’s gotten to a point where some of the most impactful policies that would help people, you know, the ones that are really popular politically, the ones that if you go by the polls, 60, 70, some of these 80 percent of our fellow Americans want these things in terms of the whether it’s the child tax credit, paid family leave and we could just go down the damn list. So all these things that the American people want have either now been eliminated or watered down and the plans to tax the wealthy to fund all of this that idea is on the chopping block now.

Michael Moore [00:06:50] Well, our good friend, the journalist David Sirota, has been following the money behind the forces blocking this Reconciliation Bill, as it’s called, blocking it from getting passed. And it’s so incredible to each day read his, I don’t know if you call it a blog or whatever. It’s similar to my thing on Substack. David’s is called The Daily Poster, and he really does do this daily. And I’m telling you how many days he does it more than once a day. It’s such a good feeling knowing that we have such an intelligent watchdog for all the rest of us. He’s, of course, covered this type of scenario before. Back in 2009 when the Obama administration’s response to the financial crisis ended up bailing out and propping up our corrupt banking and economic system and my local local companies in Michigan, General Motors and Chrysler, propping them up, while leaving most Americans especially the people that got caught up and lied to and their homes taken from them, leaving them to fend for themselves. 

Michael Moore [00:08:03] And David now has got a great new podcast about this moment in history that I’m talking about. Back in 2008-2009. He’s doing it for Audible, and it’s called The Meltdown. It has a lot of parallels to what’s happening today. And I urge you to check it out. And he’s also involved in an upcoming movie that I’ll ask him about here that sounds really exciting. Please, everybody, welcome to Rumble, Mr. David Sirota. David, thank you. 

David Sirota [00:08:31] Thanks for having me. I’m really honored to be here. As you know, I’m a big fan. You and I were reminiscing before that I think the last time we were together was actually about 20 years ago when I was working for Bernie Sanders. And you were doing, I think for TV Nation, you were trying to run a ficus tree against a Republican member of Congress for that show.

Michael Moore [00:08:51] Yes. Yes. Well, you know, the premise of the piece was, is that something like 90, 95 percent of Congress that if you decide you’re going to run for reelection, the vast majority, if not all of them some years, they all get reelected. It’s a very little back in, at least back in that day, there was very little turnover. And I read this article that said something like 90 percent of Congress gets to keep their seat over and over and over again. In the Soviet Union, at the time, they had only an 85 percent return rate. So it’s like, how could we be worse than a country that has a one party system? And of course, my point was that you can make the case that we have a one party system in this country with two heads, but they are both beholden to capitalism and to the rich who fund everything. 

Michael Moore [00:10:17] So yes, we were running a ficus tree. A ficus tree if you don’t know what that is, it’s that plant that sits in your dentist office. And so we decided to run that and we got sort of, kind of on the ballot in New Jersey against this Congressman, Frelinghuysen, who was running for his 19th term or whatever. And you were a big help to us when we came, I think we wanted Bernie to talk to the ficus and tell us, you know, what to do about this? But thank you for that help. We appreciate it. 

David Sirota [00:10:44] My pleasure. 

Michael Moore [00:10:45] All these years later. All right, so let’s really get to the core of what’s going on right now because people who have watched the news, read the papers here in the last 24 hours are pretty upset at what seems like the Democrats giving in. Of course, realizing that the gun to their head that both Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin have been holding, there isn’t a whole lot we can do about this. Manchin’s not up for reelection till 2024. So it’s not like you can threaten him. Hey, we’re going to run somebody against you next year. Well, there is no next year. This guy’s around for quite a while. But you know, the progressive position on this is to get both of these infrastructure bills passed. The one with the bridges and the roads and then the one that’s going to help people, it’s going to help single parents, it’s going to help people with kids, it’s going to help old people, sick people, because we’re not at that age yet, but I just found out through this process that Medicare does not cover glasses, hearing aids or teeth. The dentist.

David Sirota [00:11:56] When did we decide that teeth were not a part of the human body? 

Michael Moore [00:11:59] I don’t know. I mean, it’s just like, who in America believes that old people shouldn’t be able to chew. They’re not allowed to hear, to see or to chew. I think it’s a human rights issue that all people should be able to chew. But man, tell us where we’re at here today because it seems like Biden and some of the Democrats have been kind of trying to let us down, killing us softly with their song, that we’re not going to get hardly anything of what we’ve been hoping to get from this bill. And the rich are certainly not going to have to pay. There’s not going to be a billionaire tax on any of this stuff. So let’s talk short-term before we go long-term. But in the short-term, people are already depressed enough and to think that this isn’t going to happen in these next few days is very disconcerting. I turn it over to you, David. 

David Sirota [00:12:59] Yeah. Well, let’s start from the beginning of this process. I mean, this process started and it was going to be a $6 trillion dollar bill. That was Bernie’s position. And Bernie made the right point. He said, you know, it really should be, if we’re being serious about this, it really should be $10 trillion, but it’s going to be $6 trillion dollars. And let’s be clear, $10 trillion dollars is only a little bit more than we are slated to spend on the official, non-war, regular Pentagon budget in the same time period. So when people hear these numbers, I just throw that out there as a comparison. So we start at $6 trillion. Joe Manchin said he could accept $4 trillion. Then the bill went down to $3.5 trillion. Then Biden and Manchin started making noise. We have to do a strategic pause. 

David Sirota [00:13:43] Then Biden came in and said, Well, we’re going to do $1.9 trillion. Then, Manchin said, I can’t do anything more than $1.5 trillion. And I’ve made the joke that, you know, we’re headed towards that scene in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, where it’s John Candy saying, How about two bucks and a used Casio? The problem here is that the longer the bill has been delayed, the more it has been cut and gutted and the Democrats have refused to force a vote. I mean, one tactic you could do is say, Look, here’s a good enough bill, $3.5 trillion, everybody, the House and Senate have voted on a $3.5 trillion dollar framework. We’re going to put a good bill on the floor, make Sinema and Manchin and the whole Congress start voting on this and let’s make them put up or shut up. 

David Sirota [00:14:28] Because right now they’re getting the best of the worlds that they want to get. They and their donors. They get to sit there sniping about this bill, different pieces of this bill that offend different parts of their donor constituents, the oil and gas industry, the pharmaceutical industry, billionaires. They’ve been sitting there sniping at different parts of these bills and then that prompts Democrats to go back to the drawing board and start cutting away these pieces of the bill. So what we’ve seen in the last few weeks is, you know, Democrats have said they’re considering getting rid of the most popular part of the bill, according to polls. 

David Sirota [00:15:04] I mean, this is mind blowing. There was a Politico story that said Democrats, in order to get a deal, are now considering getting rid of the provision to let Medicare negotiate lower prescription drug prices. At the same time, polls have shown that that is, if you ask people, what is the most popular thing? What’s the thing you most want in this bill that you’ve heard about? That’s the number one thing. So the mind blowing thing is you’ve got a situation where the debate is in order for Democrats to get a deal with their own party they apparently have to get rid of the thing that the American people most want. So what does that say about our system? And then you go through the rest of it, you know, today, just as before we started talking, there’s an announcement that the Senate Democrats are going to get rid of paid family and medical leave. 

Michael Moore [00:15:51] Yeah, I saw that. Oh jeez.

David Sirota [00:15:54] We’re talking about wildly popular programs. Apparently, Joe Manchin said he wants to potentially get rid of the Bernie Sanders provision to expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing aids and eyesight. So the big question is what is left in this bill? And I should mention, of course, Manchin last week got the White House to start getting rid of the major climate provision in the bill, which was a program to, not even force, but at least incentivize utilities to start using cleaner forms of energy. So the big question is what is left here? And I’m not sure we know the answer to that yet, but I can tell you a couple of things. 

David Sirota [00:16:39] The first thing I can tell you is that the fact that the Democratic Party leadership has not forced a vote on a good bill tells you a lot about how much they’re really trying to pass a good bill. I’m paraphrasing here, but there was that famous quote from Paul Wellstone, who basically said, If we say we’re for something, but we’re not willing to fight for that thing, are we really actually for that thing? And that raises that big question: how much if they’re not willing to force a vote, if they’re not willing to put really any real pressure on Sinema or Manchin, then are they really serious about passing this bill? And I said recently, one of the reasons the Democratic Party always sounds so incoherent is because the party is constantly trying to serve its corporate donors and tell voters it is helping solve their problems created by their corporate donors. 

David Sirota [00:17:36] So if you try to do both things at the same time, you sound incoherent. And if you side with the corporate donors, then you’re not going to deliver on your campaign promises. So that’s one one part of this. The other part, I would just say, is the fact that the progressives, God love them, I mean, they held out to try to keep the infrastructure bill, the lobbyist written infrastructure bill with the human infrastructure bill that they…They took a stand on that. But the problem has always been that they have not drawn lines in the sand. They have said we want the hard infrastructure bill to stay connected to a human infrastructure bill, the Reconciliation Bill. And we want that reconciliation bill to be, quote, robust. 

David Sirota [00:18:21] But the problem with a word like robust is that that’s fungible. That’s, you know, you can fudge that. And so it’s not really clear. You’ve got Manchin making clear what all of his red lines are. But you don’t have progressive saying we can or cannot vote for this unless it has these non-negotiable things in it. And so you’ve got a situation where Biden is clearly saying, Look I’m going to have the progressives vote no matter what I do. If I wave around a piece of paper and it’s got two bucks and a Casio on it, I’ll have their votes and I got to mostly deal with Manchin to keep any kind of vote, any kind of bill alive. 

Michael Moore [00:19:00] David, what is wrong with us? I mean, I mean, I’m serious. Why haven’t we? I mean, I’m sort of, on some level, I’m just tired of blaming these centrist Democrats. I want to ask, I’m going to look inward to myself and say, What am I and others, what are we not doing to make it abundantly clear that we represent the majority, the majority of all Americans? That’s us. The positions that we take, the things that are in this bill, the $3.5 trillion dollar bill, these are all things the American people want and why can’t we deliver? Because I certainly and I said this to a guest on the show last week, If we don’t deliver, is anybody thinking about next year’s elections? Because I’ll tell you, it’ll depress the vote. People are going to stay home or they may vote, but they’re not going to bring five people with them to the polls. 

David Sirota [00:20:03] Well, this is a really important point. The linkage between the economic policies and the crisis of democracy that Bernie Sanders has tried to articulate, he’s basically said that he’s worried that if the Democrats do not deliver real help to people, people will lose faith in democracy. And I think that that has not been really either well understood or accepted. And the connection is this: if you keep getting elected, promising to deliver help to people and people keep using the democratic process to vote you into office and then when you get into power, you take the side of your corporate donors and don’t deliver on your campaign promises, what you are doing is not only saying we’re not going to deliver help to millions of people who need it, you’re not only going to do something economically immoral, but you are sending a meta message that democracy doesn’t really matter or doesn’t at minimum doesn’t really work. 

David Sirota [00:21:10] So then when you go into the election and you don’t have much to argue for on the economics, you know, we haven’t really passed very much to say to people, Hey, look, has your life gotten better? Then you go to those folks and you say, Listen, you got to elect us to prevent the insurrectionists and the people who are trying to crush democracy.,You’ve got to at least elect us to stop them. There’s going to be a lot of voters to say, Look, I just voted for you. I just used the democratic process to put you in power, and you didn’t deliver much of anything. And now you’re telling me that the main thing I got to do is protect the democratic process, which didn’t do me much good. So these two crises are really linked together. 

David Sirota [00:21:48] You ask, What can we do? My answer to that is the oldest answer in the book: is that the only thing that can be done is to try to use the democratic, small-d democratic process to make these legislators do what needs to be done. That means really making them, really uncomfortable, and that has not yet really been done. And I’m not blaming us, as you know, I’m blaming the people in power. But what I’m saying is that Joe Manchin clearly does not feel uncomfortable doing what he’s doing. Kyrsten Sinema does not feel uncomfortable doing what she’s doing. All of these Democrats just don’t feel a sense of urgency. Now part of that is systemic. Joe Manchin may think, Look, I’m going to go be a millionaire lobbyist after this, I don’t care, I don’t care about anything. And Sinema may be saying the same thing. But there are ways to run primaries against these people. 

David Sirota [00:22:49] There are ways to protest them. There are ways for the Democratic, and this goes back to whether the Democratic leadership itself is fighting, there are ways for those people to make them uncomfortable. I mean, one idea that I had that I wrote about was, Look, you could take a good $3.5 trillion dollar reconciliation bill, put a whole lot of stuff in it. I mean, a whole lot of stuff in it for West Virginia and Arizona. The president could campaign in Arizona and West Virginia. Bernie Sanders is popular in West Virginia. Go to West Virginia, tout these big, specific things in these states, then put the bill on the floor and make them try to vote against it now. 

David Sirota [00:23:25] Maybe they will vote against it. But my point is that they have to be made to feel uncomfortable. And just one last point on that. Bernie Sanders had an op-ed in West Virginia. I think it was a week and a half ago and then Joe Manchin immediately freaked out. I mean, the op-ed was like a polite op-ed saying, We got to pass the Reconciliation Bill to help working people. Joe Manchin absolutely freaked out, How dare you publish a newspaper article in my state? And there was a lot of the elite punditry that said, Aha, you see Bernie Sanders doing that, that was a big miscalculation. And I looked at and I said, Joe Manchin freaking out is proof that it worked. Joe Manchin is freaking out over one op-ed. 

Michael Moore [00:24:06] Yeah. 

David Sirota [00:24:06] And by the way, the next day, Joe Manchin was talking about how he really wanted to get a deal. All of a sudden, his rhetoric had changed. And my point is that you’ve got a propaganda system, a corporate media propaganda system in Washington, which was a perfect example of power being challenged. Power had to respond. Power’s response proved that the challenge actually worked, and the corporate media propaganda system tried to spin it. Not as, Hey, look, Joe Manchin is actually a little bit nervous. They tried to spin it. How dare Bernie Sanders do this? And my take away from that is: that’s the only way to actually try to get something done here. It goes back to the old idea, power concedes nothing without a demand. That was true back back in the day when that was said, and that is true today. And the demands just have not been powerful enough to make these legislators uncomfortable enough. 

Michael Moore [00:25:05] So in order to make them uncomfortable now, like right now, so that we can keep large parts of this bill. Am I just up the wrong tree here? So what can we the people, we the majority do? What can we do right now to put whatever kind of pressure is needed to make this happen? I’ve really banged my head against the wall, trying to come up with an answer for this because clearly Sinema and Manchin know they do have us backed up against that wall. And they can just say, sorry, Charlie, we’re going with the Republicans on this one. 

David Sirota [00:25:47] Well, look, first and foremost, there is no historical precedent really for one or two Democratic senators to kill the agenda, really the landmark agenda of their own party’s president. Now, I’m not saying these aren’t unprecedented times, but my point is that it is hard for me to imagine that if these two are really put on the spot and isolated that they would ultimately take down Joe Biden’s entire agenda. Now the problem is that the political situation is not allowing us to even get to, to use a metaphor, to get to the goal line. To get right there where there’s a one big Senate vote and they’re going to have to decide whether to take down their own party’s president or not. To my mind, that has to be the strategic goal. How do we get the best possible bill in front of the U.S. Senate so that the obstructers have to make a really huge, monumental decision. 

David Sirota [00:26:53] Because, yes, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin have behaved like monsters, and maybe they are monsters in their heart, but they don’t want to be in that position. They do not want to be in that position. So the question is how to get to that point. My view is one way to get to that point is to make sure that the House Progressive Caucus actually holds out because I also think my other calculation is that Joe Biden is a deal maker. He’s desperate for any kind of deal. He knows he needs to get a deal. And I do not think he has been properly motivated and mobilized to mobilize that entire White House apparatus, which is a very powerful apparatus. 

David Sirota [00:27:35] I know there’s this idea out there that the president is not powerful, has no power at all. That’s a bunch of crap. We know that’s a bunch of crap. And I don’t think the White House has been mobilized to actually do what it takes to do to pass a real bill. But I think the way to mobilize them is if there is a bloc of House progressives, who say, We are not going to vote for a bill unless it has X, Y and Z and we are holding out and that is the end of it. That mobilizes Biden to at least get a bill that has those things in it onto the goal line at the Senate and really make those members, those senators show their cards. And so that’s a long way of saying that one first and foremost pressure point is if you are represented by a progressive blue district, blue state Democrat, it is to simply make clear to them, whether on the phone, whether on email, whether at their office, whether in protest, wherever you can, to make clear to them that you want them to hold out for and you can come up with your priorities. 

David Sirota [00:28:39] A good climate policy, a Medicare expansion, paid leave, whatever it is, those progressive members still hold an enormous amount of power. By the way, so does Bernie Sanders. So does Elizabeth Warren. They have as much power as Manchin and Sinema. Now I was talking to a friend of mine recently. There’s a fundamental asymmetry operating here. That progressives don’t want to kill the whole bill. And in theory, Manchin and Sinema are OK killing the whole bill because their donors are OK killing the whole bill. So Manchin and Sinema can terrorize the entire process in a way that progressives cannot obstruct the process, or at least feel they cannot obstruct the process. 

David Sirota [00:29:22] But I think we’re still a far cry from a situation where the entire bill gets taken down. I think we need to demand that the members of Congress who are famous as progressives, who have large Twitter followings and are in the media all the time, that this is their moment. And I want to be clear, I’m not saying that to criticize them. Like AOC, I think she’s been great, I think the Squad has been great. I mean, they’re not perfect. They’re politicians. I’m, you know, I don’t worship them. They’ve been better than most. But this is their moment. And they have a huge amount of power. 

Michael Moore [00:29:59] So, OK, I believe in everything you just said. But as you pointed out, just before we turned our microphones on here, it was announced that the Democrats are taking paid family leave out of the bill. Paid family. The only country on Earth without some form of paid family leave. And, you know, one thing I remember about Trump when he first ran is weirdly enough, he came out in favor of paid family leave. Said his daughter convinced him to do this. What are we going to do when Trump is running for president in 2024 and he’s running on a platform of those weak Democrats, They couldn’t even get paid family leave passed, I’ll get it done. 

David Sirota [00:30:45] Oh, I’m certain he’ll do that. And you mentioned our podcast series that we’re putting out there. It’s about how that history may repeat itself. Without going into all the details, we know that after the financial crisis, the Democrats made all sorts of promises. Going tough on Wall Street. They ended up getting into power, by the way, with almost 60 Senate votes and they essentially delivered for Wall Street, barely delivered much of anything in terms of relief to homeowners and the like. That sowed all sorts of discontent and created the conditions for Donald Trump to pretend dishonestly that he was the solution. And it’s like the same situation. 

David Sirota [00:31:27] You’ve got the power to actually deliver. If you don’t deliver, you’re creating the conditions for it could be Donald Trump himself, or a Donald Trump clone to come along and say, I’m here to do the things that the Democrats refused to do. And it could be a worse form of Donald Trump. That is the nightmare scenario. And that is a very real scenario. And that is the scenario that should be on everybody’s mind, right? Beyond the economic morality of something like paid family leave or any of the things we’ve been discussing. There’s just the political necessity: what are you going to go to voters with if you just got elected promising wildly popular things and then in a high profile way strip them out of your own bill? And my question, that’s on my mind is, where is Joe Biden? Where is he? What is he doing? 

Michael Moore [00:32:22] Well, we’ll answer that. Where is he? 

David Sirota [00:32:24] I mean, I know he’s having a meeting in Delaware with Manchin and Schumer, but it’s almost a worse version of what happened on the Affordable Care Act. Everybody remembers. I know it’s hard to remember 15 minutes ago, but on the Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama famously said, I’m going to let Congress basically write the details of this bill. And he had a kind of hands off, and the problem was that the Senate Finance Committee, one of the problems was it was run by Max Baucus, who was owned by the health insurance companies and the drug companies. And they ended up producing a bill that didn’t have a public option that basically was a giveaway to the health insurance companies. 

David Sirota [00:33:01] There were some good things in it, but nothing that fundamentally changed the system, arguably a politically strengthened the for-profit, predatory health care system that we have. And he had a kind of hands off approach. Obama did. And Biden by contrast makes Obama look like FDR. Biden’s like gone, he’s like, I don’t think he’s playing all that much of a role at all. He’s certainly not out there putting any pressure on Manchin and Sinema. He’s not using any tools of influence or pressure, at least in public that we know about and the stuff from behind the sea. We’re not hearing like, Oh, he’s really arm twisting them in his, you know, meetings in the Oval Office. I don’t know why that is. I’m not going to pretend to psychoanalyze him other than to say, to me, it looks like a lack of desire, a lack of will. 

David Sirota [00:34:00] And this is a party that just allowed one of its other most popular campaign promises the $15 minimum wage to be killed by, or they wanted us to believe it was killed by a parliamentarian, basically Senate Senator Chuck Schumer’s aide that he can fire and replace. I mean, the nerve of them to come out there and say, Oh, we can’t do the $15 minimum wage because of a parliamentarian. What’s interesting about that is not just that they killed the provision, it’s that, what do they think of voters that they think that they can go out there and say that? And anybody believes that crap? Like how stupid must they think voters are? 

Michael Moore [00:34:42] They think they’re stupid, that they’re a bunch of dulls and that they could get any of this by them. And you know, I’ve said for weeks, answering the question, you know, what is Biden doing to convince Manchin and Sinema? And I’ve been saying, what happened to the days when I was growing up when, you know, Lyndon Johnson, man, he would just haul them into the Oval Office, take them by the ear, by the collar and go, Just tell me the pork you want. 

David Sirota [00:35:11] Well, and there’s that story 

Michael Moore [00:35:12] For your state. 

David Sirota [00:35:13] Yeah, there’s that story about Medicare. We wrote about it at The Daily Poster, which is when Medicare was nearing the finish line, although they didn’t know it was the finish line. At that point, it was essentially bottled up in a committee and there were two Democrats who were holding it up. And essentially, I mean, they were outspoken against Medicare, and Johnson flipped the two and one of them said they were asked, I think the guy’s name is Smathers from Florida. I think it was. They said they asked him, why did you flip your vote? You’ve been outspoken about this…I flipped my vote because Lyndon asked me to. Now, to me, the way I read that is that Lyndon Johnson basically bullied, threatened, intimidated, cajoled whatever word you want to use, he made it happen. 

Michael Moore [00:36:11] And offered to send $10 million worth of aid to their state that they could then take the credit for. 

David Sirota [00:36:17] And the point is that the president has so much power. I know there’s this idea out there that’s made fun of, the Green Lantern theory. The cynics call it. Oh, you know, people think the president’s a Green Lantern, a superhero can do whatever. I don’t think so. I don’t think that. But I also don’t think the president is powerless. I know the president is not powerless. And I think this idea and what’s crazy to me, what bothers me so much is that there are rank and file voters who are addicted to cable TV news, MSNBC and the like who have been taught to think like pundits rather than like citizens. That have been taught to think, Oh, well, Biden must not be able to do anything because I know those pundits on TV told me that, Oh, he doesn’t have much power. 

David Sirota [00:37:02] It’s just a lot of nonsense. Like the president was elected. It’s the most powerful office in the land, he has not given it the good old college try. I think that’s obvious, right? And to go back to my theory for a second. Yeah, my theory is you’ve got to mobilize the White House to use its power, and the way to mobilize the White House is for a group of House Progressives to say, You need our votes, you’re not getting our votes until these things are in the bill, which makes the president, makes the White House say, OK, look, I’ve been dealing with Manchin this whole time. He’s been given us orders. I’m trying to just appease him. Now I’ve got to balance these two things. And now I actually have to use my power, all of these tools that I have to actually forge a deal. 

[00:37:47] And I don’t think that the progressives have sufficiently forced Biden to do that yet. I am holding out hope that they will, but to me, that is the last leverage point that we really have. And I should add that at least those progressive members of Congress are willing to listen to people. And I think in their hearts, they understand that the argument is a good argument. Now there’s a much bigger difference between understanding a good argument, believing in an argument and actually fighting for it. Actually taking risks, and that’s what we have to do.

Michael Moore [00:38:20] In the progressive caucus, there are, I think, close to 100 members, right?

David Sirota [00:38:25] Right. 

Michael Moore [00:38:25] It’s 435 total members of the House and 100 of them belong to the Progressive Caucus. This is not the squad of four people. This is a lot of members of Congress. Seems to me that when we’re done here recording this, I should be on the phone or sending emails to various progressive members of Congress telling them, Stand your ground, do not give in on this. 

David Sirota [00:38:54] Correct. 

Michael Moore [00:38:55] It’s a historic moment. 

David Sirota [00:38:56] And I would say the other thing you have to say to them is: make clear what your demands are. Make them clear. Stop allowing there to be, because you’re saying stand your ground. They’ve said things like no climate, no deal or we want a robust bill, but they haven’t said we need X, Y and Z to be in there. Bernie has come the closest by saying we are not getting rid of, for instance, the Medicare expansion. And that’s a very specific, that you’re either doing it or you’re not doing it kind of thing. They need to make clear what are non-negotiables. Joe Manchin is throwing out a red line every five minutes. The progressives continue to not throw out real red lines. I mean, at this point, I know what my red lines would be. 

Michael Moore [00:39:45] I was going to say, if you were a member of Congress, you just stated one of Bernie’s. And he’s also said it’s unacceptable that there are corporations or billionaires that pay $0 in taxes, right? For Bernie, that’s a red line. 

David Sirota [00:39:59] Yes, I would say something on taxes, whatever, there’s plenty of policies around something on taxes that raises taxes, makes the wealthy pay their fair share. I would say the Medicare expansion is wildly popular. I would say Medicare negotiating lower prescription drug prices. And I would say one of the genuinely serious climate policies. For instance, that program we just talked about actually moving utilities to use cleaner sources of energy, the one that Manchin is most opposed to. To me, that’s not all I want, but things like that should be a red line. They are wildly popular. They are wildly necessary, desperately needed things. And the progressives are there to draw those lines. 

David Sirota [00:41:00] I mean, it goes back to the Lyndon Johnson quote that was reported where he said at one point he got frustrated, I think it was on the civil rights legislation, and he said something to the effect of, they were saying, Oh, we can’t do this and can’t do that. And he said, Oh, I want to push for it. And he said, at the end of the day, what is the presidency for? He was asking a kind of rhetorical question. It raises the same question to these members of Congress, especially the progressives, like if you’re not there to stand your ground on crystal clear things right now, what are you there for? Just because it’s a cool job. I mean, is it really that cool jof a job? Like, it doesn’t seem like that cool job to me. I mean, fine, maybe it’s kind of cool. But this is why you’re there.

Michael Moore [00:41:44] If you can’t stand for children, basic, real basic stuff to help parents who have kids…instead of a quarter of their income going to childcare, to pay for childcare, to have that be reduced to seven percent. I mean, you would be really hard pressed to find people who are against that. And what are they afraid of? Why won’t they draw these red lines? And say dammit, this is it.

David Sirota [00:44:35] Well, why can’t the progressives make a line in the sand on like, all people deserve to have teeth. Or, you know, people deserve to have paid family leave. It’s not that they can’t do it. The question is they haven’t been either motivated properly or they are kind of psyched out. They’re afraid that if they take a stand that they’ll kill the whole bill. I just don’t believe that that will happen. I do not believe that Joe Biden, ultimately, he may be nowhere and maybe not motivated, but he knows he needs a bill. He knows he needs something. That is the leverage that they have. 

Michael Moore [00:45:11] When you bring up climate, I mean, I’m just curious, if the Democrats aren’t going to stand up for what I consider to be such minimal things climate wise in this bill, you know, what’s in this bill is not going to actually turn us back to a time when we didn’t have so many parts per billion in the atmosphere, but if they can’t even go for that, the message to me and the other people who would consider themselves environmentalists is that, Wow, if the so-called Liberal Party of this country can’t even fight for that, can’t make that happen, where does planet Earth go? 

David Sirota [00:45:57] Right and that’s where it gets really dark. 

Michael Moore [00:46:01] That’s where it gets dark. T. 

David Sirota [00:46:02] That’s where it really gets dark. I mean, that’s the other thing, I mean, I also think, by the way, there’s an analog to the Medicare stuff, which is to say this: if the Democrats control Congress and they can’t pass even one thing really serious on climate. And the Democrats control Congress, and they can’t even minimally expand Medicare, it’s not just that that’s a loss, a short term loss. What’s being said is that a real climate policy is not possible. What’s being said is that the idea of Medicare for All is never going to be possible. I don’t like to talk in finalities like that, but it definitely sends that message. That if you can’t do even a minimal set of things when you have power, what you’re saying is that you’re telling millions of voters that you’re never going to, like later on when you need to get even more serious, that that’s just an impossibility. So that’s why this moment is so high stakes. It’s not just the policies in front of us, it’s what we’re saying about what’s possible for the long-term future. 

Michael Moore [00:47:11] Well, I just want to scream here, because, you know, I want to say to the Democrats, you’re in power. You do know that, right? 

David Sirota [00:47:20] I don’t know if they know that. 

Michael Moore [00:47:21] Yeah, yeah. It’s kind of like trying to convince somebody who is constantly putting themself down, Oh, I’m not smart enough or, you know, I’m this or that, and you’re like, I don’t know where this is coming from. You need to stop that because you’re really smart and you’re a good person, you know, and whatever it is, and it’s like, I want to scream at the Democrats, that you have the White House, you have the House and you have the Senate by one vote, thanks to the vice president. You can’t make squat happen with that. I mean at that point, you know, when I was younger, I used to think, well, the solution to this is that we need a third party. That’s why we need a Green Party, whatever. But now that I’m older, I don’t have the energy to start a new party. I’ve thought lately, you know what, why don’t we just take over the Democratic Party? It’s already there. 

Michael Moore [00:48:18] They already have a building on Capitol Hill. They’ve already got a logo. They’ve already got stationery printed. What do we have to do to just move out the ones who have got cobwebs up and down their bodies and cannot make a damn thing happen? What can we do to take over this party and make it the party of the majority? Because that’s what it is. We are the majority. David, you and I, who 10, 20 years ago, might have been, you know, discussed as if we were out on some kind of limb, barely hanging onto a twig. But now the majority of Americans are at a point where they get it. We don’t have to convince anybody that $7.25 cents an hour [is bad]. 

David Sirota [00:49:07] That’s right. The war of ideas has been won. 

Michael Moore [00:49:09] Absolutely won. We won’t have to convince people that the government has no business putting its hands on a woman’s reproductive organs. We don’t have to convince the majority. The vast majority of Americans agree with us on all these things. It’s not like it’s 51-49 now. It’s like 60-40. It’s 70-30. In some of these issues, it’s 80-20. 

David Sirota [00:49:28] Yup. 

Michael Moore [00:49:29] So we already have the American people with us. What is it? What is it that we could do to just say, fuck it, let’s just take this place over. Let’s just, I’m not talking about January 6th storming to the DNC headquarters, but I don’t know how I can really talk to the people that I talked to, whether it’s on this podcast, or who’ve seen my movies or whatever with a straight face and just keep saying, Yeah, you know, we can keep making a better world here. And we’re going to help the people the have nots and then we end up doing nothing. Really, ultimately nothing. Now there’ll be a bunch, like you say, they won’t throw everything out of this bill. There will be a nice couple of nice bones that’ll feel good. But you know, poor people aren’t stupid, working people aren’t stupid. They know especially how Democrats come and promise them one thing and then deliver on maybe one tenth of that. And then call it and say, we’re your friends. 

David Sirota [00:50:32] But I think your point is right, that changing the party is of utmost urgency. We have a situation, I’ve used this metaphor before, we have a situation where you have the Harlem Globetrotters of Evil, the Republican Party. And the Harlem Globetrotters of Evil are a huge, obviously a huge problem. But at least part of the problem is that you keep putting on the floor to face the Harlem Globetrotters of evil, you keep putting on the floor the Washington Generals. And the Washington Generals make it feel like a rigged game. Like it’s already a preordained outcome. And that’s a little too cynical. I don’t exactly think there’s, you know, four people in a room twisting their mustaches and ha ha, you know, like it’s WWF wrestling. It’s already scripted. 

David Sirota [00:51:21] But I do think that, there’s folks who may listen to this, oh, you know, fixing the Democratic Party may be important, but it’s not that important because the real problem is the Harlem Globetrotters of evil. And my point is that those two things work together. The Harlem Globetrotters of Evil are only able to keep dunking the basketball and winning the games because there hasn’t been enough of a priority on making sure we’re putting the NBA All-Star team on the floor instead of the Washington generals. That’s why the project of improving the party and making it more accountable to people is not some side project. It’s part of the actual solution here. It’s not some hobby, it’s integral to fixing things. 

Michael Moore [00:52:09] I can’t take it anymore. I’m serious. I’m not going to take it. I’m not going to lie down and take this. 

David Sirota [00:52:18] And I don’t think you should.

David Sirota [00:52:23] Look, I should tell you, I mean, just as a personal anecdote. And I’m not saying it was like heroic or anything, but I worked for Ned Lamont when he ran against Joe Lieberman in the primary. My wife ran in a primary for state legislature here in Colorado, and she became the first Democrat to challenge an incumbent in a primary in this state and win in decades. And it was a brutal campaign. It was really difficult. It was really hard on our family. I’m really glad she did it. She’s done some great things in the Legislature, taking on the Democratic governor when it comes to taxes. We got a conservative Democratic governor here and I won’t bore you with that. But the point is not to say, Hey, look at us, look at how great my wife did or how great our family did, or whatever. It’s only to say that some of my friends have said, you must be a glutton for punishment. You work for Ned Lamont. You only worked for underdog campaigns and you’ve worked on campaigns, now you’re doing a grassroots media organization. 

David Sirota [00:53:20] Now you’re putting out a podcast series, you know, challenging the religion and deification of Barack Obama and what happened in the Obama years. And my point is like, We all got to pitch in. We all have to make hard choices. If you’re going to engage in politics, the easiest thing in the world is just say you vote blue and don’t think about things. Like everybody has to reach at this point, really, really reach and do things that can be scary, do things that really ask us to reach. And it’s just to say, and not to be cheesy about it, but if not now when? Because there may not be a win. That’s what the scientists are telling us, at least when it comes to stuff like climate change. 

Michael Moore [00:54:04] Yeah, I think everybody listening to this, if you could just pause or wait till we’re done here but take a few moments and think about what it is you have to do. Each of us has to do that. Each of us has to look into our soul and say, enough is enough. I reject the world that they’ve created for us and that they want to continue, where the haves get richer and the have-nots have to suffer long. 

David Sirota [00:54:35] And can I add one thing to that? It has to also not be the reaction of I’m just disengaging. 

Michael Moore [00:54:42] Oh no, just the opposite. 

David Sirota [00:54:43] Exactly. Because I think one reaction to this is, you know what, they’re all corrupt. Forget it. 

Michael Moore [00:54:48] No, that’s exactly what they want you to say. Yes, that’s exactly what they want you to do. Yes. And they want to demoralize you. They want to debilitate you. They want you to give up any semblance of hope and that is Christmas Day for them. That is Santa has arrived when you and I friends say, Fuck it. That’s it. I’m out. That’s the best music to their ears. That is not what’s going to happen here. We are not done yet. And in fact, what we’ve done is we’ve shown that we have been able, through all of us sticking to what we believe over these decades of bringing the majority of Americans toward the left, toward our way and showing them how things could get a little bit better for them and maybe a whole lot better for them. And they’ve said overwhelmingly that, yes, that’s the world I want to live in. 

Michael Moore [00:56:03] We have won seven of the last eight presidential elections, but with the popular vote. The vast majority of Americans agree with us, not them. And when I say them, I’m talking about the Republicans. They don’t agree with the centrist Democrats, these corporatist Democrats. This is, my friends, we hold the power. We just don’t know it. It’s in our hands. And so each of us has to figure out what to do with it. Some of you should be running for office. Everybody listening to this is somewhere where even if you ran for precinct delegate, I think you just need like in some states five signatures on a petition to get on the ballot to be a precinct delegate. We all have to do something, my friends, because this hasn’t worked and the rage that I’m in, I’m sorry if I’m yelling into the microphone here tonight, but the rage that I’m in listening to the Democrats give in on one thing after another because of these two corporatist Democrats. They need to know that they are going to have to rue the day that they did this, that they did this to us, and to the majority of Americans. And I can’t. 

David Sirota [00:57:06] I think there are reasons to be optimistic, though. I mean, granted, I’m an optimist.

Michael Moore [00:57:13] No no good. Let’s hear it.

David Sirota [00:57:15] I mean one thing we can feel optimistic about is all of the labor unrest in the country. That workers on the job are doing the really, really hard thing of standing up to the boss. That, to me, is a hugely important thing that’s happening. Yes, for four years, I think a lot of us have wondered how docile is this country to get the corporate boot in the face over and over and over again and there hasn’t been much of a pushback, whereas in other countries, that kind of thing, you often times see labor pushback. So I think the working class, we do see like an activation that is really, really, I think, encouraging. And now the question is, can that be brought into the electoral political arena? 

David Sirota [00:58:09] And now the negative side of that is: if it’s not and this is what our podcast series focuses on, this is what keeps me up at night. If things continue to get worse in the political arena, that really runs the risk not of benefiting the left, but of really benefiting the hard right. We did a piece in Rolling Stone today, Alex Gibney, who helped me on the podcast, the director. And basically there was a couple of studies that came out and I want to preface this by saying I’m not calling Trump a Nazi or his followers, you know, straight up Nazis. But we looked back on what happened in 1930s Germany and found that the specific places in Germany, the counties where the votes were happening in Weimar, Germany, the places where austerity, budget cuts, not helping people enough, Social Security cuts back then, the places where those were most acute were the places that swung hardest in the vote to vote for the Nazis. 

David Sirota [00:59:10] And they also found the places that had the highest level of desperation, high mortality rates, self-inflicted mortality, you know, alcoholism, suicide. Those are the places that shifted most supportive to the Nazis. And we know that Donald Trump over performed by 10 points compared to prior Republican nominees. He overperformed, particularly, in places where the mortality rate in the United States has been spiking. We know that austerity doesn’t prompt people to say, Hey, I want Bernie Sanders. It’s that austerity and pain often creates the conditions for a right-wing backlash. That creates the conditions for dishonest, strong men to come in and say, I’m the solution, you know, as Trump said. I’m the solution or I’m the only one who can fix it. So the point is that there is a political necessity to this to prevent something worse from happening. I’m not saying we’re going to become, you know, Nazi Germany, but I am saying history is screaming at us to not allow this to happen. 

Michael Moore [01:00:19] Give me one more optimistic thing that you see going on. 

David Sirota [01:00:23] Well, I also think I’m optimistic that there is finally a space for even what we’re talking about. I mean, you know, back in the Obama-era, this kind of topic being brought up, you’d get completely eye rolled. Rahm Emanuel, you remember the situation where Rahm Emanuel then chief of staff of the White House, he when progressives, a bunch of progressive groups, said he found out that they were going to air ads to pressure I think it was conservative Democrats to support a minimal public option, and he basically berated them with a slur. It only became a story because he had to apologize for using the slur. But the point is that back then, even mentioning any of this, you were called an apostate. It was like blasphemy. 

David Sirota [01:01:08] And I think now there is a space to actually talk about this without being made to feel like you’re insane. I do think there are members of Congress who are on the Democratic side who are not happy with the situation, who are receptive to what we’re talking about and who are willing to stand up, hopefully, or at least have thrown out the possibility that they’re willing to stand up against their leadership, against Biden. I don’t know if they’re going to continue standing up, but my point is it’s not enough. But that dynamic didn’t exist 10 years ago. It just did not exist. It exists now and that is progress, right? 

Michael Moore [01:01:47] Hey, we’re going to run out of time here, and I need you to tell us a little bit about the movie that’s coming out here. 

David Sirota [01:01:52] Oh, sure. 

Michael Moore [01:01:52] It’s not a documentary. But you are credited with the story credit for this film. It’s the next Adam McKay film. We all know and love Adam McKay. And it is, well, why don’t I let you tell us about it? But I’ve already booked it in my theater. We have an amazing theater there in Traverse City, Michigan, and will be showing it on our screen on December 10th. But just tell the people listening to this, because this just sounds like a great, great film. 

David Sirota [01:02:23] So I’m not supposed to talk very much about it. So this is a special, don’t tell the higher ups.

Michael Moore [01:02:28] Just us and everybody promises to keep it quiet. So go ahead. 

David Sirota [01:02:33] There’s a trailer out about it, but basically the story…

Michael Moore [01:02:39] Yeah. Fucking Adam McKay. He’s yeah, he got a hold of our sensor button. 

David Sirota [01:02:44] Don’t tell McKay. 

Michael Moore [01:02:46] Go ahead. 

David Sirota [01:02:46] It’s a story about scientists. [They] discover that an asteroid is headed towards Earth and they have to go tell the government, they tell the president. And at a certain point, the president doesn’t seem to be all that responsive to wanting to do much. And so they have to go on a media tour to try to convince the country and the government to care about a literal asteroid headed towards Earth to destroy the planet. And I’ll say this about the film: that a lot of people take it to be a climate metaphor. They say, Oh, you know, it’s like climate change, this existential problem that we know is happening and isn’t being taken seriously. 

David Sirota [01:03:29] But some people say, Is it a pandemic movie? Like we know how to stop the pandemic and we haven’t. And I actually think what it really is: it is really a movie about asking the question, Are we able to process and react constructively to basic undebatable verifiable facts? Or have we created a propaganda system, an entertainment system, that can trivialize literally anything and trivialize in a way that serves the powers that be? That is really the question I think at the base of actually everything. 

David Sirota [01:04:12] Can we process facts that we know are facts that are indisputable? And can we process them in a way where we can, as a society, react rationally to them? Or have we created a system that downplays and trivializes facts that we can’t even really process things like a civilization should process those things. And I think people will, you’re going to laugh at the movie. It’s Hilarious. It’s really hilarious. If you Google it, you’ll see some of the clips that have leaked out. It’s hilarious. But I also think that people are going to find it to be…It is a deeply important movie that gets at some of the biggest questions that we need to ask. 

Michael Moore [01:05:00] Well, I can’t wait. And it’s called Don’t Look Up. 

David Sirota [01:05:03] That’s right. 

Michael Moore [01:05:03] Don’t Look Up. And who’s in it?

David Sirota [01:05:08] Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill. 

Michael Moore [01:05:11] I’ve heard of most of them. 

David Sirota [01:05:12] Yes, the cast is ridiculous. Wow. Timothée. 

Michael Moore [01:05:16] Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s an awesome cast. OK, so in December, right?

David Sirota [01:05:21] Right. It comes out at the holiday season. It’s going to be on Netflix. And yes, I helped develop the story and I co-produced it. And I really hope, you know, I mean, I’ll say and I’ve told McKay this, the one question that I have on my mind is: can a movie about a dysfunctional system break through that system, or will the system itself, is the system itself that it’s diagnosing, will the system itself make it impossible even for the movie to get a fair hearing. I mean, can you get…. 

Michael Moore [01:05:58] Wow, that’s a heavy thought. 

David Sirota [01:05:59] You’re putting a mirror up to the system and saying this is a problem. But you’re diagnosing the very problems that could be used to essentially try to trivialize the movie itself. 

Michael Moore [01:06:11] Wow. It’s not that I haven’t thought about this before, but I guess here’s my optimism: I have so much faith in our fellow Americans that I know most of them are not people that want to sit it out. Just stay on the couch. They care deeply about their country. They care about their kids, they care about their elderly parents and I know just how desperate and depressed people have felt in the last, even just the last 24 hours, hearing that possibly these very simple things that 70-80 percent of the American people are in favor of are maybe not going to happen. 

Michael Moore [01:06:53] And that despair, as you know, David, it sinks people, it sinks them and they just go down into the hole, into the hole and then some people never climb out of that hole because they just give up. That is our biggest enemy right now, bigger than Trump, bigger than anything else. It’s our own belief that we’ve just had the shit kicked out of us one too many times, and I just don’t want to go up and get kicked again. But you know, anything that has happened throughout history that has been worth it, freedom, justice, it has never come about by apathy, inaction. Or don’t worry, I’ll show up and vote. The big changes don’t happen that way. And I’ve seen it throughout my lifetime and I’m still going because I believe that we’ve done such good work bringing the majority of our fellow Americans with us on these issues. Now we have to cross the finish line with them. 

David Sirota [01:08:03] And I should add, I mean, and I want to compliment you, I mean, you’ve been in this fight for a really, really long time. And I know I’ve been in the fight a really, really long time. And I’m sure you have days, if not months, where you feel crappy. You feel like it’s not worth it. You’re not wondering why you’re doing it, but it just feels super depressing. And all I would say about that is that’s a natural feeling to have. If you didn’t have those feelings, you wouldn’t be human. It’s actually good that you have those feelings, it means you care. And I think ultimately you have to process those feelings by saying it is worth it. I mean, my religious tradition, there’s a saying in my religious tradition, I’m Jewish, the saying is, and I’ll butcher it here, but it’s basically: you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. And I think of that quote every single day when I wake up. On the good days, on the bad days. And I just think it’s hardest to hold on to that sentiment when times are dark. But that is what we have to do. I mean, I have children. I have a family, I have a community, I have a country that I love, and you just got to pick it back up and just keep doing it.

Michael Moore [01:09:26] On the darkest days when I’m just like, what’s the point? The answer to that always is: I don’t have a choice. 

David Sirota [01:09:35] Right. 

Michael Moore [01:09:35] That’s the point. The point is yes, I’d like to go just sit under a tree somewhere and write some poems, but I don’t have a choice. And I think a lot of people listening to us right now feel the same way, and that’s why they’re not going to give up and we live to fight another day. And you know, I’ve already got my calendar booked in 2024 to spend a lot of time in West Virginia getting Manchin removed. And a good, good soul from West Virginia elected. But in the meantime, in the meantime, let’s do what David suggested here. Let’s everybody, even if you’ve got a blue member of Congress from a blue state…

David Sirota [01:10:24] I mean, those are the leverage points, though. 

Michael Moore [01:10:27] Yes. Don’t say to yourself, Oh my, I don’t have a Republican. No, no, no. You need to call them tonight, tomorrow. You need to send them an email. You need to tell them that we are not tolerating any of this, this retreat and surrender. And I’ll give you the number again, I’ve given it to you many times before. This is the Capitol Hill switchboard. There’s a human that answers the phone. They will connect you to the office of your member. If you don’t know your member, just give the zip code. They’ll connect you 202-224-3121. It’s right here on my podcast platform page. 

Michael Moore [01:11:09] Please, my friends, the next 24 to 48 hours, it’s so important that our voices are heard. Do not give in to despair. Know that we have the power. We just now have to use it. We are the majority. We and all the people who believe in the things that we believe in. This is the best time to be alive right now. It’s never really been like this in my lifetime. I’m so, sometimes I just feel I don’t know what the word is, giddy. That’s still a word? That my fellow Americans are standing up, they’re fighting back. They’re unionizing. They’re doing all these things, and we can’t sit this out, not one inch of it. We can’t sit it out. So please do, as David suggests, and please, as we close here, just sign up for David’s podcast, The Meltdown and also The Daily Poster. 

Michael Moore [01:12:21] I should say the more than Daily Poster. No, but it’s great and I’ll tell Basil, you know, we’re just talking about, you know, sometimes we’re preparing for the podcast here and we’re thinking, hey did you see what David wrote…so man, you know, keep doing what you’re doing and we’ll all be there to see your movie in December. Sounds like an incredible satire. Don’t Look Up. And please come back again here on Rumble. I really appreciate it. It’s been too long. We waited way too long to have you on. I’m sorry it’s taken this long. So thank you for coming on today. 

David Sirota [01:13:01] Thank you and thank you for all of your work over so many years and for being a real, a real hero on all these issues. I’m sure and I know it has not been an easy thing to be somebody who has been speaking out on these issues for as long as you have, so I really mean it. Thank you so much for all the work. 

Michael Moore [01:13:17] Well, that’s nice of you to say that. But you know, as long as there’s two more episodes of American Crime Story Impeachment to watch…you probably don’t watch much TV. 

David Sirota [01:13:29] I do not, no.

Michael Moore [01:13:30] Actually, I’m watching way too much of it here during the pandemic. But man, there’s been some great stuff and there’s been some great working class stories that have been on. There’s a Jeff Daniels thing right now on Showtime called American Rust that’s set on the West Virginia – Pennsylvania border. And in another series called Maid, it’s about women..it’s a powerful political drama. I encourage people to don’t do what David does. Actually turn on some of these things. It’ll give you some hope because the stories that you’re living in and you’ve already figured out what needs to happen. And we all together, we will make that happen. And Democrats who are listening to me, I’m talking about my representatives in Congress, we are watching and we are not happy. We are pretty pissed right now. And you need to draw some of those red lines and you need to make some of this happen because you’re representing the majority of Americans right now. So act like it. All right. That’s the end of my sermon, David. Bless you. Thank you. 

David Sirota [01:14:43] Thank you. Thanks so much. All right. 

Michael Moore [01:14:44] Be well, everyone listening. Be well. Thank you to Basel Hamdan, executive producer of this podcast, to Nick Kwas, our editor, to Donald Borenstein, the human Swiss Army knife to Harrison Malkin, and everybody else who works on this podcast. Thank you very much. And let’s all do what we need to do right now. Take care. This is Michael Moore, and this is Rumble.