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To read more about Episode 233, visit the main episode page. 

Michael Moore [00:00:02] Hello, everyone. This is Rumble with Michael Moore and I am Michael Moore. Welcome, everyone. Wonderful to have you with me here today. I just watched “Belfast” again in honor of St Patrick’s Day tomorrow. It’s such a powerful movie about a Protestant family back at the beginning of the Troubles in 1969. A Protestant family living essentially in a Catholic neighborhood and how everyone, for many, many years, saw themselves mainly as Irish and not so much as a Catholic or a Protestant or whatever. But because of the way that the British government ran Northern Ireland, the way that the Catholic citizens were kept in permanent to second class citizenship, and then finally, in August of 1969, the British soldiers opened fire on unarmed protesters, Catholic protesters, and killed a number of them, including a number of children, and all hell broke loose after that. And so Kenneth Branagh, the director and writer and producer who started his career really in the year I started with his first film, I think it was his first film, or first big film, “Henry V.” This is 1989 so it was Spike had “Do The Right Thing,” Branagh had “Henry V,” Steven Soderbergh’s first film “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” I think it was the first we saw Denzel Washington in “Glory” — it was really an amazing year. I’m leaving out a lot — Paul Mazursky’s “Enemies, A Love Story.” I’m just trying to do this from memory now, but there was so many things — Gus Van Zandt’s “Drugstore Cowboy.” And every festival we were at Denzel was there. At the next festival, we’d all see each other and Gus Van Zandt and Matt Dillon and the others from “Drugstore Cowboy.” Wow. It was such an exciting moment in time to have my first film out there, and I was just nobody from Flint, Michigan. And I, of course, had never made a film before and didn’t go to film school. At least I didn’t think I knew what I was doing, but it turned out that sometimes it’s helpful not to know what you’re doing. And it became “Roger and Me.” And so to see, you know, Kenneth Branagh’s film all these years later — now his new film, “Belfast.” A great filmmaker and it is so powerful. And, you know, I guess it’s hard. It’s hard for me because, you know, most of my family, my ancestors are Irish and I know all these stories, and all the stories that have been passed down and how they had to suffer and survive and get by. My first — these would be my great, great aunts came from Cork in the 1880s. We still have the boat ticket with the three sisters on it. They were the first to come. They came, got jobs, came to Michigan. I don’t know if they passed through Canada or whatever, but they came to Michigan and they got jobs and sent money back. And so others in the family could come over. And it’s, you know, and here I am — grateful to all who came before me, grateful to those who suffered, grateful to those who suffered discrimination. Here in the US, “No Irish need apply.” Taken off the boat in New York Harbor in the 1860s and enforced into the army. Not go and settle life here, but go fight and die in a war for a country that they’d only been in for an hour or two. You know, if you’re Irish, you know all these stories. If you’re not, you know your people however they got here, be it in chains, be it they were the first ones here, or all the other ethnic groups that have come here over the years to try to make it. Everyone has their story, and stories. So these were mine. And I’ve held them close, and I remind myself of it and the empathy that I need to have as a grandchild of immigrants, and to stand for those who are now being punished, who are now being discriminated against, never to lose sight of the fact that except for the first peoples, the Native people who were here already and those who were brought here as enslaved human beings. The rest of us all came — we’re all descendants of immigrants. And it is stunning to see the behavior of our fellow Americans when it comes to the treatment of immigrants. And I’ll tell you, it’s even more profoundly stunning to see it from my fellow Irish-Americans. The level of bigotry not just to new immigrants, but to people of color, it’s really shameful and embarrassing. Those who live in Ireland and those who are Irish they know what, for years, people in Europe, and in other countries called the Irish. I’m not going to say the word. You know what the word is. They were considered that of Europe. And so if anybody should have empathy toward immigrants and toward people of color in this country, it should be us. The Irish, the Irish-Americans. And of course, all my Irish friends do have that and have fought for that and stand up for that and fight racism and bigotry and all that. But so, so many more don’t. 

Michael Moore [00:06:52] Saturday night, I was asked to be a presenter on the Irish Academy Awards in Dublin. The official name is the Irish Film and Television Awards, or the Irish Film and Television Academy Awards. I just say, “Guys, it’s okay. Just call it Academy Awards. We don’t mind here.” It’s kind of cool because I’ve been to the Irish Oscars, I’ve been to BAFTA, the British Oscars, I’ve been the French Oscars it’s called the Caesars. And I won. Not best documentary, I didn’t get that. I won Best Foreign Film. And I was up against Steven Soderbergh that year. Steven Spielberg. And I forgot another filmmaker, too. And we won. We were stunned. You know, I went up on the stage to accept the award. It was given to me by the French actress Isabelle Huppert. And. Wow, I was just… You know, I spoke a little French. Awful. Don’t ever try that. I’ve done it a couple of times. I mean, they appreciate it. I mean well when I do that, but you know, they’re like, “okay, Mike, thank you for trying.” But I think that year was actually the year — oh geez, that’s right — that was actually the month before we invaded and bombed and killed civilians in Iraq. A war we, of course, eventually lost. Big loser once again. But I’m probably gonna mention that here in a little bit because I want to talk about it as it relates to what’s going on with Ukraine right now. But my thanks to the people at the Irish Academy for having me present the Best Irish Documentary Award, Best Irish Documentary of the Year. And I got to speak a tiny bit of Irish, our native tongue, which is not English. And I think I pulled that part off. I didn’t hear from anybody because we Irish will be the first to make commentary — anybody who was up on their high horse thinking that they could, “oh, so you can speak Irish now, Mr. Moore?” But it’s St Patrick’s Day. I’m recording this on the day before St Patrick’s Day I guess, or sort of the day before. I always love this day. Not for the parades and not for the drinking, but for my gratitude. My gratitude for knowing that sometimes my sense of humor, your sense of humor, is what saves us from utter friggin’ despair. And we’ve needed it these last couple of years more than ever. 

Michael Moore [00:10:06] But the best part about seeing “Belfast” today is that two years ago today was the last time I entered a movie theater to watch a movie. And today I called up the person who I went to the movies with two years ago today. And I said, “Have you been to the movies yet? In these two years of the pandemic” “No, no, no.” “I know. Me neither. Let’s do it. Let’s just do it. We’re good, we’re good — we’re triply vaccinated, we’ve got good N95 masks. Let’s just go do it.” “What do you want to see?” “I want to see Belfast. It looks — just the look of it, the cinematography. It’s black and white. Beautiful. I want to see that. I want to see it in a theater.” And, you know, you can go on many theaters’ websites now and see how many seats have been sold and where they’ve been sold. And so this theater had 150 seats, and 138 of them were empty. So talk about social distancing. It felt safe. And I had already talked to people at AMC about their filtering systems and the things they’ve done during the pandemic. It’s not what I did at my theaters. I went whole hog on big new filters, air exchange, fresh air, new fresh air in there every, you know, ten or 15 minutes. Just to make it as safe as possible. They don’t do that in the, you know, the multiplexes, but they have done many things to make it safe. And so it felt safe. And so we went to the movies. We went to the movies and saw “Belfast.” And… Wow. I was in tears. The final scene — it just hit too close to home. And so thank you, Kenneth Branagh, for making this incredible movie. It is nominated as best picture and I think a whole bunch of other nominations this year for the Oscars. Not, the Irish Oscars, the American Oscars. But it was also personally uplifting for me to get out, and to go to one of my, maybe my favorite place. You know, my real church that I used to go to two or three times a week. Now I haven’t gone in two years? If you could be in here in the podcast room right now and just see me — how uplifted I am, and how glad I am to be alive, and how sorry I am to all those who’ve had to suffer or have lost loved ones. Nearly a million Americans gone. Well over 6 million worldwide. So, you know, I think that’s also part of the Irish in us, how much we care and how much we don’t forget the suffering of others. So here I am reannointed in the movies, and ready to go. 

Michael Moore [00:13:36] As I’m recording this just a few hours before President Zelensky from Ukraine is going to be on a big screen live inside the House of Representatives, where both houses of Congress will hear a talk from him. I’m sure it’ll be a powerful and emotional moment. Everyone I know is behind him, but I have some things to say. He’s going to make certain requests of us in the morning that I want to suggest we pause and think about it first. That will be the next 30 minutes or less of what I have to say. It won’t be long. And before we get to that, let me just thank our main underwriter. Thank you, of course, to Anchor. 

Michael Moore [00:14:35] But thank you to this wonderful organization that has started to underwrite my podcast recently and I’m very grateful to them. I, like most of you, I’m sure, have had a lot of time to think here over the past couple of years. And that time has made me… Curious. Curious in a way where a lot of the junk food TV, and so-called content can’t really scratch the itch. You know this feeling, right? That’s why when you find something, especially during this pandemic that is like, “wow!” — it just kind of gives you a bit of a rush. So I am delighted to thank our new underwriter and to thank them for supporting my voice and this podcast. And they are called Wondrium. They are the streaming service that is made for lifelong learners. I hope that’s everyone that’s listening to this show. Whether you’re seeking out, say, a compelling documentary, or trying to learn about a new skill or subject matter Wondrium is the place for you. Wondrium has mind-blowing, premium, encyclopedic programing on virtually any topic that you can imagine, all designed to move you forward on your journey to learning something new. There’s some really incredible stuff that I have found on Wondrium. There’s an incredible documentary on Stanley Kubrick’s right-hand man Leon Vitali called “The Film Worker.” It takes you behind the scenes of Kubrick and how he worked. Amazing. And speaking of Leon Vitali, who has come to my film festival in the past, there’s a fascinating story of how this aspiring British actor ended up being integral to Kubrick’s singular vision over the years, including auditioning — get this — more than 4,000 child actors to find the right one to play the little boy in “The Shining,” Danny Torrance. Can you imagine that? He literally — and I know the story because he told me — his quest across America, mostly focusing on the Midwest, to find that little boy that had to be the correct little boy to play this role. And it spoke volumes about how Kubrick created perfection in filmmaking. Wondrium also helps you learn through engaging video and audio learning experiences, interactive how-to guides and documentaries, and it’s all led by teachers and professors and experts who will inspire you and remind you of the fun in learning. So if you don’t mind me saying, today is the best day to get started. Wondrium is offering my listeners — you, the Rumble listeners — a special limited-time offer, a free 22-day trial membership to celebrate springing forward into learning something new here in this first week of Daylight Savings Time. But this offer will not last long, so please sign up today. To get this offer, you need to visit Wondrium.com/rumble. And in doing so you can get your learning on today. 

Michael Moore [00:18:42] And now on to something very important that I want to say to all of you today. I don’t know if you feel this way, but I feel this way. I feel… I feel that there are people that are trying to take us to war. And I’m not talking about people like Putin. I mean, and if you’ve listened to my podcasts and you read my things online and whatever, my Substack, you know exactly how I feel about Mr. Putin and you know exactly how I feel about the Ukrainian people. And as someone who years ago traveled both within what was then the USSR, the Soviet Union, and someone who then came back and traveled in what was the new Russia, and twice was present when Mr. Putin, long before he was president of Russia, where he was present where I was present. Our paths weirdly crossed. So my feelings about all of this, about what he’s done, about the sad and tragic place that the Ukrainian people are in — none of that has changed in these last few weeks. But here’s what has changed. What has changed is there are those who are trying to take us to war. And I mean, they’re trying really, really hard. And some of it is very effective. The media, our politicians, our corporations who stand to make millions, billions off of war. And you know what? I’ve been through this enough in my lifetime that I’m hip to it. I know when I’m being manipulated. And I wanted to take a few minutes in this podcast here today, this won’t be long, I just want to express my dissatisfaction with the manipulation that is going on so that I, somewhere in my heart, will eventually say any day now, “we have to go there. We have to go to Ukraine. We have to go to war.” And you know, also, if you know me, I will fight that feeling every inch of the way. Because we are not going to war. 

Michael Moore [00:22:15] As I’ve said before, we have such a bad history of war mongering. We’ve done good things. We’ve, in the past, there have been some times where we’ve gone and supported and protected people and all of that. But generally that’s not us. Generally that’s not us. We are a violent people so we “founded” the country based on a genocidal act, many acts, to remove permanently the people who were here first. And then our second original sin, that of bringing slaves here through acts of violence — killing a lot of them, hanging a lot of them. But we needed to build the new country and we needed free labor and so boom — millions of slaves, and deaths. And what is my/our responsibility to protect the people here and around the world? Because we all live on the same planet, we all share that planet. But our actions since World War II have been pretty sad and despicable and wrong. Whether it was Korea, Vietnam. Cambodia, Laos, you go down the whole list of things that we did invading the Dominican Republic, all the other the wars after Vietnam that were started, you know, mainly by Reagan with, you know, Panama and then the first Iraq war under the Bush the first, and then the grotesque invasion of Iraq in 2003. And before that, going into Afghanistan without really a clue other than “let’s go to war. Let’s go to war. Let’s all hop on our horses and go to war.” That just always seems to be the first thought. How’s that worked out for us? How’d that work out for the Afghan people? How’d it work out for the Iraqi people? So after these two colossal mistakes, I wrote a thing basically saying that we have to go to the timeout room — we Americans. We are not allowed to go to war anymore. If there is a justifiable reason to help others who are being attacked, whatever, there’s things we can do. And we’ve seen that in this case here with Ukraine, with sanctions, with defensive armaments. There’s things we can do, but we can’t go there. We must not go anywhere because of our behavior in these last 20 years. We have to stay in the timeout room. 

Michael Moore [00:25:43] And that’s how I feel this week. But I’ll tell you, I have to turn the TV off. Are you feeling the same way that you can’t watch the news anymore? I mean, I literally have had to stop — maybe once a day I’ll check in just to see what kind of B.S. is being shoved down the throats or the ears or the eyes of the American people. And every day — have you noticed this? — it just gets more and more and more. And the story they want to tell, the sad story, the sadder, the better, showing the Ukrainian cities being bombed, showing people dead in the streets, showing the children. Awful, awful, awful. And your heart breaks. And if you care, if you give a damn, your brain goes, “I should be doing something. We should be doing something. This has to stop. This guy’s crazy.” Of course, that’s part of the bait, isn’t it? Putin isn’t completely stupid. He knows we like the bait of war. And it doesn’t take much to get us active, and to get us violent, and to show up thousands and thousands and thousands of miles away. He’s doing something on his doorstep. He’s doing something to a country that used to be part of Russia. He’s, you know, it’s again, just imagine if he had sent Russian troops to Mexico or Canada here in the last month. Where would we be then? Probably not in the timeout room, right? Yeah. But he knows us. He’s got our number. Most of the world has our number. 

Michael Moore [00:28:00] And what I want to say here today on this episode is I am begging you to resist. Not resist Putin — the Ukrainian people are doing a great job of that. I mean, how many weeks have gone by where we still are watching that one piece of footage of the Russian tanks and trucks on that one road? And like every other day, it gets bigger — they tell us it’s five miles long, and then it was ten miles long, then it was 40 miles long. Okay, well, why is that? It might be because actually the Ukrainian people are doing what we would do if that line of tanks or whatever, if it wasn’t a convoy of trucks of Trump supporting Canadians — is that such a thing? — coming across the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit, but what if it was Russian tanks and whatnot? What would we do? We’d have to say goodbye to the Ambassador Bridge, for one thing. But of course, you know, that’s not what’s going on here. And what we’re seeing every day is this kind of uptick in more footage, more photos, and there’s one last night I don’t know I tuned in to one of the networks and they showed a missile coming in to a parking lot and blew up, I don’t know, I think I went back and paused it and counted 7 to 9 cars. And it was awful, of course, but they made it sound like this happened today. And I’m thinking, “dude, you showed me this like three weeks ago. What is going on here? What is going on?” And then President Zelensky, fellow satirist, and of course as you know a couple weeks ago I offered to conduct any negotiations on his behalf to get this thing to stop, but he’s taken this position now that we, WE are responsible, we have to fly our planes and shoot down Russian planes that are flying over Ukraine. We need a no-fly zone, and it has to be enforced by our Air Force, or we give planes to the Poles or I don’t know, each day there’s a new method, but it’s all about shutting down the airspace. But, first of all, we’re not going to do that. I don’t know how to say this to President Zelinsky and to the Ukrainian people, but I mean, we’re not doing that. That would start such a massive war with Putin, with Russia. You’ve got two countries that have thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at each other, and we are not going to do that. Not even for Ukraine. 

Michael Moore [00:31:11] And that may be hard to hear if you’re Ukrainian, if you’re President Zelensky, but we are not going to risk the destruction of the world for — well, for anything, frankly. That, I know, is a bitter pill to swallow. But there are other people — Europeans, European countries, neighbors of Ukraine — there are others because it is their neighborhood and because they don’t have our record of just willfully, randomly invading other countries and killing their people, bombing civilian populations like we’ve done in Iraq, there are people that can help. Not us. Not because we’re afraid, it’s because we’ve behaved badly and so we’re not allowed to. Especially not when there are others who can help. And let me tell you who’s helping I think, let me just offer a good guess here… If you watched Putin’s crazed speech from that table of his on the day he decided to go to war, the thing ran at least an hour, you saw that… I never thought Putin was, like, just outright batshit crazy but there he was saying stuff that I’m like, “dude. You know, I don’t agree with you, but at least I thought you had a brain. And I hoped you knew what was best for your people and to keep them out of war and all that. But, man…” But here’s the thing, you’ve got to go back and watch this, a couple days later he televised a meeting with his top generals about the war. And again, he’s at one of those 100-foot-long tables or, it’s not that long, but you know what I’m saying, it looks like he’s at one end of the table in Moscow and the people down at the other end of the table are in Minsk. But they would cut away to the generals, like close ups and two shots, and the generals were like looking at each other out of the sides of their eyes, or they were looking down at their papers and trying to pretend they were shuffling them around. If I could have put subtitles under the looks of those generals faces, it would have said, “this guy is fucking nuts.” That is the look on their faces. You’ll see it if you go back and look at it. They looked embarrassed. They looked like they were trying to communicate with each other because they couldn’t say anything like, “what do we do? I don’t know. What do we do? We must do something.” Yes, you must do something because he is going to get your soldiers killed. So between that and then a week or so ago, the various oligarchs, the uber-wealthy in Russia, people that had been made wealthy essentially by Putin and his crimes and his dishonesty, they started coming out publicly against the war, saying it was wrong. “We need to end this. Stop it.” The top three or four of the richest ones in Russia were saying publicly to Putin, “Stop.” And I have felt pretty much since last week and again, I don’t know if this will happen, but I think what may stop him and what may stop this war are the people who enjoyed their wealthy, criminal life in Russia with their billions of dollars that he made available to them, they probably don’t want that way of life to end. And a war like this could make that come to a close. So they want to stay rich, live rich, and the generals and the soldiers, they want to live, and they don’t want to fight for something they don’t believe in. And I thought, well, you know what? We won’t have to really do anything. I think here, maybe in the next few weeks, the generals and the rich are going to put a stop to this — either they’re going to convince them to stop, or come up with an idea to save face, or there may not be a Vladimir Putin any longer. Something will happen. That’s just a wild idea in my head. That may be true. And you know me, if you’ve been with me for a number of decades, you know that sometimes when I have these crazy ideas, it’s actually what is the truth and what will happen. Maybe not — I could be wrong. 

Michael Moore [00:36:25] But we, jumping into this war and tugging on our heartstrings, and today a documentary filmmaker, an American, Brent Renaud, and another reporter for Fox News were killed there and it’s a good way to get Americans again to get behind a war — “Now they’re killing us. They’ve killed American journalists. They’re killing Americans. Did you hear me? They’re killing Americans. Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight.” And I’m here to say that while I’m very sad about that, and I will remember all who have perished in this war, be they Americans or not, the solution is not for more to perish. And President Zelinsky, there’s not going to be a no-fly zone that the United States is going to operate. We’re not going to send in our jet fighters and our bomber planes. It’s just not going to happen. And for those of you listening to this who are thinking, “yeah, but Mike…” No, no, there’s no “yeah, but..” We have not earned the privilege of coming to the aid of others who are dying. We have not earned the privilege of that act because of our behavior, because of how many civilians we killed in Iraq. The numbers vary. It’s all over the place. We killed 100,000 civilians, we’ve killed over the years, and this dates back to when Clinton was president, nearly a million Iraqis. Someday the U.N., somebody will sort out the exact number but, you know, it’s bad. And for what? We wanted to protect our oil that was under their ground. Because of all the lies we were told by Colin Powell — I’m sorry, I know, don’t speak ill of the dead. I rode with him on an Amtrak train one time and had a nice conversation. Well, I thought it was nice, I’m not so sure he did. But listen, we were lied to. We were sent to war. Between Afghanistan and Iraq… What do we have — 6 or 7 or 8,000 dead American soldiers? I’m sorry. I don’t know the exact number right now. Wow. You know, if there’s 7,000 of them, that’s 14,000 parents who lost a child. It’s thousands of husbands and wives who lost a loved one. I don’t know how many thousands of kids no longer have a dad or a mom because of our insanity. 

Michael Moore [00:39:43] So no President Zelensky, we’re not coming. I know that’s hard to hear. And we will help — we are helping — in every other way possible. And we will support your neighbors who I know want to help you. But all of this, you know, the bombing yesterday that was just 10-15 miles from the Polish border in Ukraine, and they all got on TV — all the politicians, all the ex-generals, all the pundits, last night and today. The Russians bombed a base that was just a few miles from the Polish border. And all we’ve had to listen to today is, “Putin. We told you. You touch any, any acre of land, bomb it, kill its people, whatever of a NATO country — we’re coming in. All of us. One for all and all for one. And you did this just a few miles from the Polish border? We’re ready. Do that again and have one of those missiles go astray and come into Poland — we’re coming after you.” That is been the drumbeat all day today. And I have to tell you something. No, we’re not. We’re not coming. I know people don’t want me to say this out loud because we want to stop him. He has to be stopped. But the Ukrainians seem to be doing such a good job. You know they have the third largest army in Europe? That’s another way they’ve tried to pull at our heartstrings. “Look at how bad it is for the Ukrainians. All they’ve got are rakes and shovels.” No, they don’t. We and others have funded them to the max. And we have sent them so many missiles and armaments and tanks and things. They’re a well-trained army — we’re one of the countries who’ve helped to train them. I’m just saying we’re being manipulated. And who among you, I want to ask you I mean, I know some of you disagree with me on this, but who among you believes that because of NATO, that we’re in NATO, that we have to jump in if a missile hits Poland? “Oh, don’t say that, Mike. Of course we do.” No, we don’t. Not us. Yes, others have to, Europe has to. But us? By the way, first of all, as far as Europe goes, we’ve already jumped in more than once to help and have lost hundreds of thousands of Americans to help, to bring an end to Hitler. Which means I can’t let that moment go by without reminding you that those who gave the most in World War II were the Russians, were the Soviets. Nearly 25 million killed in World War II — Russians/Soviets — to stop Hitler. Without the Soviet Union, a lot of people will say and will tell you, historians will tell you, that the Russians had to really take it on the chin. And if they hadn’t, we may not have won that war. They became such a distraction to the sick mind of Hitler. And also because all this Eastern Europe and Russia and all that contains so many Jewish men, women and children, the idea of just going there for Hitler was just like, you know, breaking open a pinata and out falls all the people that he wants to execute and kill. They had to fight, and fight a vicious fight, and lost so many millions of people. And we lost a few hundred thousand. 

Michael Moore [00:44:30] And so it’s not like we haven’t done this. It’s not like we necessarily wouldn’t do it again under the proper circumstances. But right now, we just ended the Afghanistan war this past year, and Iraq went on for so long. We are not allowed to do this President Zelensky. And the whole thing about that we have some responsibility or that we should feel guilty about this or whatever — well, let us feel guilty. I do feel guilty. I wish that we could protect this entire planet in more ways than one, not just when it comes to war. But we are a miserable failure at that, and you cannot ask us to do that which we really have not been successful in doing since World War II. And to the media — stop it. Stop it. All these stories every day, every night. What are you trying to do? All the stories, you’ve got reporters at the train stations and showing the awful situation with a million or 2 million refugees. Oh, it is awful. We don’t need you manipulating the truth. The truth is hard enough. We all feel it. How many of those Ukrainians, by the way, have we put on planes to come here, move them here, the people that have had to leave? I don’t know the exact number, but I’ll tell you, it ain’t many. “Refugees in America? Foreigners?” No, that’s not us. That’s not us. Unless you can prove to the Republicans that if you bring them here, they’ll vote for Republicans. That’s how it worked under Reagan and before him with the Cubans and Vietnamese — anybody who would pledge their loyalty to the Republicans that would increase their votes in those places in the country where they were brought. Talk about manipulation. Talk about using them. 

Michael Moore [00:47:00] But no, this can’t happen my friends and I don’t want to belabor this really any longer. I just want to say that I am opposed to any form of war when it involves the United States of America. I want the news media to tell the truth, and to tell the actual political story that’s going on. I want to hear what’s being done in Russia with the Russian people, what they’re planning to do to get rid of Putin, to take them out, to stop him. I want to know, what’s their military doing? That would be real reporting, wouldn’t it? What are the oligarchs doing? I see the one oligarch just lost the Chelsea football team there in England. You know, a lot of them have lost their yachts. This is serious stuff. I want to know more about that, because that may lead to the end of this more than anything else. So what I’m asking for, to all of you who are listening to Rumble, is, first of all, I hope I’ve earned your trust over the years from the various movies I’ve made about the various lies we’ve been told and the various movements we’ve all joined over these years to fight against what is done in our name and with our tax dollars. I’m asking you to join with me, contact your representatives, write to the White House — WhiteHouse.gov — and tell them that we are opposed to war. War is not the answer, especially not an American war. It’s been, what, now? 70, what, 77 years since we’ve been useful in that regard? It’s not now. To all of you who are parents out there and you have a teenager — boy or girl — are you willing to sacrifice them? Would you give up their life tonight so that we can save Kyiv? Look at your children right now — and I don’t care what age, they’re 5, they’re 10, 15, 20 — just say to yourself, “you know? Little Jason here? Yeah. He’s a good kid. Love him. Love him to death. Key part is death though — I’d be willing for him to die to get Odessa back.” You can’t do it, can you? No. There are things that all of us would be willing to give our lives for. And I think the number one thing that each of us would be willing to give our lives for would be to keep our children alive. That’s why we’re not letting them go off to war. And you cannot sit there as you listen to me and say, “well, no, I think that we should be in there, we should go into… We should no-fly and all, you know, we should do that,” because of course, your kids are not in the military. So let somebody else’s child die. Let your neighbor’s child, let your cousin’s child die so we can get back the Chernobyl nuclear plant. Can you say that? Or let’s just be more honest here, “let the children of the poor and the working class — let them die, I’d give them up.” Really? “Let the children of black Americans and brown Americans — let them die.” That’s who’s going to die, by the way. You know that, I didn’t need to say that did I really? White people, my friends? Please. Come on. Let’s be honest. No American dies. 

Michael Moore [00:51:43] We are smart people. We have smart people. We can help in some ingenious ways to bring this to an end, to stop Putin. But we’re not participating in World War III, and we need to say that loud and clear. You need to write to your representatives, your Senators, Biden — no World War III. Nothing that would ignite a war like that. No Americans in Ukraine. No Americans in Russia. NATO? That’s such an old idea. It should have gone down as soon as the Berlin Wall came down. The Cold War was over — why is there still a NATO? We have to make our voices heard right now. It won’t take long. Call your representative or your senator. You know, the Capitol Hill switchboard number by now, 202-224-3121. If it’s busy, try 202-225-3121. It’s open pretty much 24-hours of the day, a human will answer. Call them and tell them — no Americans in Ukraine or Russia, and no American support of NATO. There are other ways to stop Putin. Let’s be smart. Let’s employ those methods. And let’s support the Ukrainian people in every way that we can. I will put on this platform page here a link or two if you want to send money to help the refugee situation. There’s a number of ways to help the Ukrainian people, and we should all do that. But we will not be barging in with our guns and our tanks and our planes. And if Biden changes his mind and if he decides to do that, or if he decides to get all up on his NATO horse, then we have got to get into the streets and we have got to let them know, “no! No, this is not the way to end the killing of the people in Ukraine.” So please call your senators, your representatives, call the White House, write to the White House — let them know. And President Zelensky, we’re here for you in every other way, and you don’t really want us there. That’s the dumbest thing to do, to let us meddle in this thing and mess it up even more. I’m hoping those of you who are listening to me are agreeing with this. If you don’t agree, I respect you, I understand. I’m just saying we’ve tried the other way, it hasn’t worked. We lost the Iraqi war. We lost the Afghanistan war. We lost the Vietnam War. That’s just the truth. Hard to swallow when we’ve got we’re number one written all over our chest. But that’s the truth. I’m open to hearing any ideas that you have. You who are listening. Let’s hear some smart ideas. I’ll talk about it here on Rumble — ways that we can help that don’t involve us showing up unannounced. 

Michael Moore [00:55:38] Thanks so much for listening to this today and I would love to hear your feedback, but please don’t sit this one out. We need to be active. And media, Jesus, find a different storyline. Please. Please. That’s it for me today here on Rumble with Michael Moore, I’m Michael Moore. I’d like to thank our executive producer, Basel Hamden, our producer and editor Angela Vargos, our other editor and sound engineer, Nick Kwas, and our Jack of all the trades, Donald Borenstein. Thanks to everybody who helps me with this podcast. Thanks to all of you who listen. And we’ll talk soon here. I’m Michael Moore and have a good day.