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To read more about Episode 253, visit the main episode page.

Michael Moore [00:00:14] Hello. This is Rumble with Michael Moore. I’m Michael Moore. Welcome, everyone. Thanks for joining me again. I’m doing a few days in a row here of my podcast as I took a couple of weeks off in August and I have missed a number of things that I’ve wanted to talk to you about. Today, we’re going to talk about the raid at Mar-a-Lago, not the FBI raid from a couple of weeks ago, but my raid on Mar-a-Lago back in March of 2018. In the second year of the Trump presidency, I thought I would try to see if I could get into Mar-a-Lago and if I could, how far could I get and would I find anything in the basement? So I’m going to get into that here in just a couple of minutes but first of all, I mean, are you still trying to get over the fact that Trump stole all of these classified documents? And now we’ve learned he was actually reading them. He went through the boxes. I thought, “well, no, he didn’t know what to take down to Mar a Lago. They just grabbed stuff on the way out of the White House.” No. And it turns out there’s so many more boxes, so many more documents. Remember, it started with like there were 11 boxes. Then there were 15. Then it got up to 27, I don’t know. And now the between The Washington Post and The New York Times, which have done excellent reporting on this, there’s like 300 more sets of documents that they now learned that he has had in his possession. What’s he doing with all of that? Well, I think we know. The guy never read, you know, anything while he was sitting there in the Oval Office. Didn’t attend the daily meetings of our national security and all this. There’s memos that they’re sending to each other in the White House that they had to bring down these daily reports from ten pages was way too much, seven was too much. Give him bullet points on one page — maybe he’ll read that. Maybe he’ll read that. But when he’s leaving the White House now, he wants all the documents. Wants to take them on with him. Why would he want them? Oh, maybe a little late night reading while he’s retired from the presidency? No, no. We know why he took them. First of all, he’s a traitor. So his various expressions of love for Putin and Kim and various other dictators or right-wing fascists that now hold the presidencies of certain European countries, South America, etc.. Trump loves all fascists and God knows what he shared with any of them. You know it and I know it. And we’re going to find this out. We’re going to find this out. What did he do? Why did he want these documents? Remember, for him, everything is about leverage, right? That’s how he’s lived his whole life. Information is leverage. Ownership is leverage. And if you have these secret documents and some of these documents are the transcripts of private phone calls with other world leaders. The one we know about is the president of France. What does he want that for? Who’s he sharing that with? How is he going to use it to get what he wants for his corporation to line his pockets and his family’s pockets? Nothing surprises us anymore. But it’d be impossible for me to take this too far into saying, “what actually is it he’s going to do?” Or “what was he going to do with these documents?” And as bad of a thing I could think of right now to say — you know it’s worse. I know it’s worse. It’s always worse. This is incredible. I don’t understand how he is not going to be arrested. If they don’t act, if the Justice Department doesn’t act on this, then they are admitting that not only is it okay to break the law, it’s okay to be a traitor to the people of this country, and to collude with others, other leaders, other fascist dictators in other countries. My friends, you know, we cannot be quiet about this. And we have to demand, we have to insist the truth be told, and he pay the price. You know, I, to be honest, a few months ago, I was thinking, “well, it’s never a good optics, I guess, to, you know, have the next president arrest the last president. You know, that is what happens in places that are not very free, are not democracies. And, you know, he got his comeuppance by millions of people voting him out of office.” But I don’t think we could just let this go. What’s the message to future presidents? That you could just behave like this? That you can put yourself first over the country, that you can violate your oath of office? No. We can’t let this go. And we have to be adamant and loud about this. 

Michael Moore [00:06:04] But that’s not the raid I wanted to talk to you about today. I wanted to tell you about my raid on Mar-a-Lago. So here’s the situation: so it’s March of 2018, it’s not quite a year and a half since Trump was elected in November of 2016 — and elected, you know what I mean by that. We don’t really have democratic elections where who gets the most votes becomes the president. We have a — you know, the system we have, set up by the slave owners that founded this country wanted to make sure the slave states had more representation and so they set up a system and the Electoral College was part of that system, etc., etc.. We will get rid of that someday. But in this case here with Trump, so he’s elected and it’s the second year of his presidency. It’s March of 2018. Myself and my crew were down in Florida making Fahrenheit 11/9. Well, actually, we were there just a couple of weeks after the sad and tragic massacre at the Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. And we were down there talking to the kids and the people that were organizing what would be the March for Our Lives massive rally in D.C. and across the country. But it was Saturday night and we were done working and you know, I said, “We’re only a half-hour from Mar-a-Lago. I mean, we’re down here. Let’s go see if Trump’s there. Let’s see if I can somehow sneak in.” You know, knowing full well, of course, the chance of that happening is pretty slim. He’s the president the United States, is probably surrounded by a lot of Secret Service and, you know… But yet, a few days after he was elected, I went over to Trump Tower in New York. So he was elected on a Tuesday and Saturday I just walked into Trump Tower. Just me. And I was doing a live thing on Facebook, just holding my phone in front of me. I walk in — nobody stops me. I go over to the escalators. There’s a big atrium in Trump Tower. So I get on the escalator and I ride the escalator up to the second floor and nobody has stopped me. No Secret Service, no cops, no security. And I’m like, “Wow. I wonder how far I can get.” And so I took the next escalator up to the third floor — again, untouched. And I’m not wearing a disguise or anything. It looks like me. I mean, people are noticing and they’re like, “Wow, what are you doing here?” And I said, “I’m going to go see Trump.” I got on the next escalator up to the fourth floor. I think I got as high as the fifth floor and I was finally stopped by the Secret Service. They recognized me in and, you know, I don’t think I look too scary. Of course I don’t carry any weapons or anything. And they said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’d like to see the president elect.” And they said, “Oh, well, you can’t you can’t get in here.” I’m already like five stories above Fifth Avenue. I said, “Yeah, I got this far.” And they said, “No you have to go down to the front desk and make an appointment.” “Oh, okay.” So I got back on the escalator, they didn’t escort me or anything, I just got on by myself. Went all the way back down to the first floor in the lobby, went up to the guy and tried to make an appointment. He called up to see that I was there to see him. It was really weird. Somewhere that exists, I think, on Facebook Live, or maybe I YouTubed it. You know, I’ll find it and I’ll put a link here on the site if you want to just watch that half-hour, 45-minute escapade of mine. 

[00:09:56] But anyways, I figured, “okay, that’s five days after he’s elected. They didn’t have their shit together yet, so…” But now here I am, we’re actually in Palm Beach — West Palm Beach. And we’re driving down the road and we come up across the driveway entrance to Mar-a-Lago. No gate, no security, nobody’s stopping our car. We just drive right in. And I’m thinking, “how can this be?” You know, and thinking back now, when, you know, when they say Trump has boxes and boxes of classified top secret documents that he’s storing there at Mar-a-Lago, and Giuliani the other day saying, “oh, those boxes were as safe there as they would have been in the National Archives.” But here I am, I have now pulled into Mar-a-Lago and we go all the way up to the little circular drive that’s at the very front door of Mar-a-Lago. Big brass plated door, you know, beveled glass and all the stuff people like that have. And I said to the crew, “I’m just going to see how far I get here. You guys stay in the car” — because I didn’t think I was going to get two feet. Sound guy said, “here, let me wire you up. You’re not going to get very far anyway, so let me just put a little microphone underneath your shirt here. I’ll be able to record the sound.” “Okay. All right.” That sounded like a good idea. So I get out of this car. I’m right here at the front steps. And I go up the steps and the doorman sees me, recognizes me. He says, “Oh, Mr. Moore.” And the other doorman opens the door for me. Still there’s no security. There’s no Secret Service. I walk into Mar-a-Lago. I walk into the main lobby with all that stuff that you see at Trump Tower. If you ever go into Trump Tower, all this fake gold stuff — it’s very, you know, very gaudy, I guess is the word. Is that still a word? And the Saturday night dinner is happening in the dining room. And I asked one of the people there at the desk, “hey, just wondering if the president is here.” “No, no, no. He’s not here tonight. But Don Jr. Is in there having dinner.” “Oh, yeah.” And I said, “Oh, yeah. Oh, Don Jr.’s here? I know Don Jr.” And so I start walking in, you know, toward the dining room. Well, a number of people were coming out because dinner was sort of over — I mean I was there, probably 10:00 or so at night. But they’re coming out and they one after another of course, they recognize — I shouldn’t say of course, but they recognized me. Actually, these people, they should recognize me. But instead of being like, “get him out of here. What’s he doing here? What are you doing here?” None of that. “Oh, Michael Moore! Oh, welcome!” “Oh, thank you.” Now listen, they’re all dressed like, you know, in decent attire because they’re having dinner at Mar-a-Lago. I’m in my cargo shorts, a t-shirt and a ball cap. 

[00:13:34] Many of these faces were familiar. I couldn’t necessarily tell you their names because, you know, they’re just people you’ve seen on the news, let me put it that way. And because I don’t obviously run in Trump’s circle, I don’t know these people. But I knew them by sight. But then there were media people there, too. There were, you know, people that work in television, that work in the press. The great author, Ken Auletta, was there and he came up to me, “Oh, how’s it going?” And we talked a little bit. He told me about the book he’s working on. And, you know, we’re just having a conversation here outside the the private dining room at Mar-a-Lago. And then somebody else came up and, “oh, what are you doing here? I can’t believe — hey Michael Moore’s here!” And again, I’m looking around, where’s the security? Where’s the Secret Service? I don’t see anybody. I mean, I see people that look like they should be security, but they’re not doing anything. I mean, look, if you’ve seen my films, when I go someplace I don’t belong, if I show up at some corporate headquarters or whatever, I get the bum’s rush. I’m there maybe a minute. Now, I’ve been in here for 5 minutes. Nothing’s happened. More people talking to me. A woman comes up, introduces herself. She was an executive at one of these private jet companies and gives me her card. If I ever need a private jet, call her. And I’m like, this is surreal. And I’m wondering if, you know, out in the van or, you know, my car there are are they getting this on this microphone that’s underneath my t shirt here. And then the guy at the desk says, “I’m going to go in and tell Don Jr, you’re here.” Like what is going on here? 

[00:15:45] Another 5 minutes, and now it’s 10 minutes I’m in there. I’m talking to more people. We’re just talking about what’s going on in the world, in the country, you know? And nobody’s mad. And then that started to bother me. These wealthy people, whoever these people are that I recognize from television, are not upset that I’m there. And then I took it personally. I thought, “Wow. They’re not upset. They’re not afraid. They’re not afraid that I’m seeing them here with the Trump family.” And I start to think, “how far can I get? I’m just going to go roam around Mar-a-Lago until somebody stops me.” I’m in there almost 15 minutes now, still inside — until somebody who works for the Trump Organization, a security person, comes up and says, “Mr. Moore, I think you’ve gone far enough.” I said, “Yes, I think so, too.” Of course I didn’t know anything about there were boxes being stored in the basement or in his office or whatever. I would have asked if I could just take a peek at some of that, but of course, we didn’t know any of that, that he was a thief of documents back then. We knew there’s other thievery and other criminal activities that have been going on for many years with the Trump organization, the Trump family. 

[00:17:29] So the security guy is still very polite. People are now wanting to take pictures with me and because they’re guests are Mar-a-Lago, he doesn’t want to stop them. So he steps back and lets them take their selfies. And then, you know, when every time a selfie was done, he’d say, “okay, we should we should probably go out.” I said, “Oh, yeah, no problem.” Somewhere in this in this time period. He says to me, “Your microphone has fallen off you.” And I looked down at the little tiny hidden microphone that was taped underneath my t shirt that had fallen off and was dangling down by my cargo shorts. I said, “Oh yeah. We’ve been filming today, I forgot to take this off,” feeling like such an idiot. Boy, don’t ever send me in for any kind of spy operation. So we keep walking back out into the lobby and to the front door. And, you know, I have some grainy photos of this that my crew was taking out through the car window and into the door of Mar-a-Lago. You see it’s me, but they’re pretty grainy. But I’m going to post them here on the podcast site just as some evidence that I was actually in there. And you know, I’d stop every few feet and just say to the security guy, “you know, I really would love to talk to Don Jr. They were just going in to tell him I was here. I’m sure he would want to see me.” And the security guy, he says, “Yeah, I don’t think so.” And so we keep walking to the front door. People are still snapping pictures, coming up, shaking my hand. Shaking my hand. We get to the front door, I thank the security guy for his polite behavior, and I promised, you know, “don’t worry, we’re going to head out now.” And then that was it. I opened the door, went out down the steps. Got in the car. I got in and you know, the camera and sound are in there, Basel, our producer, was in there in the car and I said, “Can you believe what just happened? Like, that was the longest I’ve ever been in anywhere where I shouldn’t be. And that there is like no security here.” And Basel said, you know, “well, geez, I know we could see some of it through the door. And we saw the famous author come out and a couple of media people.” And I said, “I know you recognize those faces, right? We just don’t know who they are.” And then I said to the crew, I said, “you know, I got to tell you, though, this last 15-20 minutes here have really bothered me because — why were they so welcoming? These are people, you know, who are the political opposites of me, and they know that our films and the things that we do, we’re out to bring them down, return our country to its people.” And then it kind of dawned on me and I said, “you know, I think it’s because, you know, they’re celebrities themselves. They’re famous, they’re well-known. And they didn’t look at me as the enemy. They looked at me, I’m sad to say, as essentially one of them. All of a sudden they saw another celebrity.” Not one like them, but it was still sort of — it just had that feeling, all the pictures and the handshaking and the harrumphing, and they were kind of weirdly admiring how I got away with being in there. They shouldn’t be admiring anything about me. That’s what I said to the crew. I said, ‘this is really this is bothersome in that sense that I should be kept away from any place like this.”. 

[00:21:58] Frankly, I don’t even know why they still put me on TV and let me say these things I say. Is it just that? Is it just because, well, I’m a “celebrity,” quasi celebrity. You know, is it because, you know, well they know how many millions see my films or follow me on social media — is that why I’m still given a microphone, a platform? It’s kind of disgusting in a way, because shouldn’t everybody have access to a platform, to a microphone to be able to speak to millions of people? I don’t know. You know, here it is now, it’s three or four years later, I’m still trying to grapple with the fact that when powerful people, when corporate titans, when media people like that see me, they should be shouting, “Security!” You know, they would be… I think I said that too loud. Now, people in the apartment building might be worried, “Michael Moore just shouted Security. I could hear him in his apartment.”. 

[00:23:12] But that’s… At least that’s what I want them to feel like. Or is it that in spite of all these movies and all the work I’ve done and things, things haven’t really changed that much? The rich are still richer. They’re still in power. They’re still in control. That even though the majority of Americans vote for Democrats in seven of the last presidential elections, the Democrat won the popular vote, that ultimately it doesn’t matter because we’re still struggling for basic things like debt relief for students, like women’s rights, like a whole bunch of things that we still have to fight so hard for that we should have by now. On the ride back, I just kind of sat there looking out the window at South Florida and thinking, “man. I want to believe this is worth it, what I do.” I want to believe what you do, all of you listening to this, is worth it. We get very few victories, don’t we? And when the people doing this to us, the ones dining out there in Trump’s private dining room, they should be disgusted and appalled at the sight of me. Not asking me for a selfie. What do I need to do to change that? What do we all need to do to change that sense of security that the wealthy have? That nothing’s going to change, that people are never going to vote us out. We control the Supreme Court now. You know, they are just so smug, so smug about how no one is going to remove them from power — to the point where even me showing up with my secret microphone dangling down out of the bottom of my shirt, and nobody’s worried there that night at Mar-a-Lago. 

[00:25:20] Hmm. You get what I’m saying, don’t you? It’s good for me to think about it. The greater point as it relates to the raid of a couple of weeks ago by the FBI is — what took them so long to conduct the raid? They’ve known he’s had these boxes, these documents since he left the White House. Since he left the White House almost two years ago now. Going on two years. What took them so long? Because as I showed on that night back in 2018, the security was virtually nonexistent. The Secret Service? Nowhere to be found. And if I’d known those boxes were in the basement… It’s always easy to find the basement stairs. All you smokers or former smokers know how to find that back stairway to go grab your cigarette. It’s all I would have needed to do is just find that one stairwell down in the basement, and all of a sudden, I’m in banker box heaven. How dangerous, how stupid or how smart of a move by Trump to steal all these documents and keep them at a place that I was just able to walk into and hang out in for 15 minutes or so? I hope the Justice Department does their job. And all of us should be making our voices heard about it. 

Michael Moore [00:27:32] That’s the story of my raid on Mar-a-0Lago. Thanks for listening to it. Please feel free to drop me a note at Mike@MichaelMoore.com. Or a voice message — you can leave me a voice message on my voicemail and the link for my voicemail is here on the podcast platform page. If you’re not already a subscriber to my Substack here, please do that. It’s free. All my podcasts are free and all my writings on Substack are free. You can be a paid subscriber if you want to give us a little bit to help us with our work, but not necessary. I’m happy to have you listening to this, and I want to thank you for this. I’ll come back again tomorrow and we’re going to talk about something that’s very important regarding the upcoming midterm elections. So until then, this is Michael Moore. This is Rumble. My thanks to my producer and my editor, Angela Vargos. My thanks to Basel Hamden and all the people that were with me at Mar-a-Lago. I still haven’t taken that executive up on that free jet ride. I probably never will. I’ll talk to you again tomorrow, everybody. Take care. Thanks. Bye bye.