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To read more about Episode 263, visit the main episode page.
Michael Moore [00:00:02] Welcome to Rumble with Michael Moore. I’m Michael Moore. And yes, the word today is blue.
[ MUSIC: “Blue Color of the Day” — by Patty’s Primary Songs ]
Michael Moore [00:00:34] Blue! The Blue Tsunami. The Blue Tsunami is victorious. We did it, folks. I just can’t thank you enough. Me and you and millions of Americans did the impossible here with this election. I’m recording this now — it’s a little over 24 hours since we learned that Senator Raphael Warnock was reelected in the state of Georgia. We now no longer have a 50/50 Senate that we controlled with the Vice President’s vote. We have a 51/49 Senate. This is so amazing on so many levels. And yes, the Republicans are going to have the House for a little bit, but they barely have it. I know the Debbie Downers is out there thinking, “Mike, why are you so happy? You know, we only got the Senate. We don’t have the House.” And I know — I know how it is. I know we’re so used to defeat on our side. We’re so used to getting our asses kicked. But that isn’t what happened this time. We did something that was completely unexpected, just the opposite of we were told for months was going to happen — that we were going to be drowned in a red wave. In fact, our Blue Tsunami created a Blue Wall that prohibited that drowning and left the Republicans in the House with the longest faces on a politician I’ve ever seen. I mean, have you seen any of the Republicans on TV these last couple of weeks? They look so gloomy, so glum, so sad, because they know there’s only a four vote differential that they hold on to. It looks like it’s going to be a 221 to 214 House with the Republicans having seven more seats. But what that means is when there’s a vote, if they don’t get four votes, if four Republicans decide to vote with the Democrats on any given bill, the Democrats win because then it will be a 218 vote to 217. Do you follow my math here? So we’re going to have 214 Democrats if four Republicans vote with us, that brings their 221 vote down to 217. The four votes go to us and now we have 218 votes on the bill and we win 218 to 217. Don’t be saying to yourself, “Oh, Mike, these Republicans, they always vote like a pack. They never break.” That’s the old days. That’s not that way anymore. They barely made it through. So many of these Republicans that did win their House seats, they won it in either districts that were blue districts, districts won by Biden two years ago, districts that have more Democratic voters registered there. Some of these Republicans won by just a few hundred votes. A few more won just by like a thousand votes. That’s it. They know that when 2024 comes around, especially if they are stuck with the stench of Donald Trump at the head of the ticket, they know they are not going to get reelected, these Republicans. And that’s why they are going to — you watch how many times they “reach across the aisle” and vote for the Democratic bill, because they’ve got to say to themselves, “Geez, I got elected here in this blue district. Am I going to vote against women’s rights?” No. Because they’re not going to get reelected. They’re going to vote for women’s rights. They’re going to vote for reproductive rights. Are they going to sit there and think they’re going to get reelected by voting to keep the minimum wage at $7.25 an hour? No. All we need is to pick up four Republican votes any time there’s a vote in the House. Pick up four votes, we win the vote. That’s it, my friends. And as I’ve explained to you, the makeup of their so-called majority isn’t going to hold, because in any given two year term — each session of the House is a two year term — so in this session that starts January 3rd, in the last two years, from 2020-2022, there were 16 members who were elected in 2020 that never made it to the end of 2022. They either died, they quit, they were caught in a scandal, they were indicted, they decided to run for a different office, they took another job — there’s a whole bunch of reasons. But 16 who were voted in in November of 2020 aren’t there now. They weren’t even there on Election Day last month. They had already gone. So there are then special elections held in these districts that lose a member of Congress during the two year period. Assuming the same thing happens like it does every session where a number of the members — I mean, sadly, you know, one of the members has already died just in the last three weeks since the election. It’s just the way life goes. We only need four seats. That’s it. We only need a flip of four. That’s it. And we will be controlling the House. We will be the majority in the House. That is what’s going to happen sometime during these next couple of years.
[00:06:39] But before that even happens, they can’t even get McCarthy elected speaker. He needs 218 votes, all right? We hold 214 of the votes, and so he’s gotta get four more votes. When they did a dry run of the vote, like a straw vote here a couple of weeks ago, he didn’t even get 200. You got 180 something votes. So they’re having a big fight amongst themselves, the Republicans. Some of them may make a deal. If four of them make a deal with the Democrats to vote against McCarthy because they hate him so much, there’s no McCarthy as speaker of the House at that point. It possibly could be a Democrat. Or the Democrats will agree to elect the most liberal Republican. I mean, there’s any number of ways this could go. But the thing they hold on to here is that they are in such disarray, the Republicans right now in the House. They’re in such discombobulation. They are really in the middle of their own civil war with each other, not against us, with each other. And that’s why they look so glum, because they’re not going to be able to govern. They’re not going to be able to rule their own house. We’re going to come out of this looking good on the right side. We’re not going to get our way all the time, but we’re going to get 4 out of 221 Republicans to say, “You know what, I think it’s in my best interest to vote for women, to vote to support — I think yeah we better do that. Support women. They are like more than half of the electorate.” Or to vote for clean air or clean water or, you know, some of the basic things — schools, you know, the stuff like that where they’re just not going to be able to take the Trump position. They’re not going to be able to take the Mitch McConnell position. They’re going to have to vote to get their ass reelected. And that means they’re going to have to vote in a way that enough Independents and Democrats in their district will vote for them in 2024. My friends, we are in such a great spot here that we’ve created. You created this. We all did this. The Blue Wall that we’ve created against their “red wave” that didn’t drown us. Just so you get an understanding of just the Senate, our victory in the Senate. A president, Democratic or Republican, has not lost at least one Senate seat in any midterm, not the first midterm, any midterm, in almost 90 years. In Roosevelt’s first midterm, in 1934. That’s almost 90 years. And Biden comes out of this, he doesn’t lose a single Senate seat. His Senate record in the election now with Warnock’s reelection – 14 to 0. 14 to 0. All the Senate seats that were up, the Democratic Senate seats, that were up for reelection or election were won by Democrats. And we picked up a Republican seat on top of that. Pennsylvania. This has not happened in almost 90 years. Nobody predicted this? Nobody except all of us who believed in the Blue Tsunami. Everybody, you know this, you had to turn the TV off. All the pundits, all the pollsters, all the — even the ones on our side kept telling us, “Well, you know, we just got to hope for the best. You know, we’re probably going to lose 2-4 Senate seats. And, you know, I mean, there’s no way we’re going to win Nevada. And, you know, Warnock’s just going to have a horrible time in Georgia.” And how many letters did you get from Mark Kelly begging for… Well, the subject heading of Mark Kelly’s emails to all of us: “It’s over. We’re done. We’re doomed.”
[00:10:56] None of it came to be. We won every stinking seat that we were up for. Every seat that we had to keep, we kept. And then we added Pennsylvania as the icing on the cake. That’s what a Blue Tsunami did. And now we have a discombobulated House of Republicans holding it by just a hair. With a few seats. With their leader — he’s the Republican leader, he’s been the Republican leader there in the House, Kevin McCarthy — as of tonight, he can’t even guarantee his own victory as Speaker of the House. It’s an amazing thing. It’s an amazing thing. The Senate thing is so amazing. It hasn’t been seen in your time, in your parents’ time, in your grandparents’ time. And I’m not talking about just for Democrats I’m talking about — there’s been no Democratic or Republican president who has not lost a Senate seat in any midterm in almost 90 years. And that’s where Joe Biden stands today. That’s where the Democrats stand. That’s where all of you who voted Democratic, even if you’re not Democratic, you know you’re not a member of the Democratic Party or anything, but we just had to stop the madness and we stopped the madness. And they couldn’t stop us. And they’re going to get a surprise or two with the House and they’re going to see that we’re going to run this House. We’re going to call the shots. Why? Because the majority of Americans believe in the platform of the Democratic Party. Look at any poll. Any poll will show you this. And I’m not talking about these goofy exit polls — all this other stuff. I’m talking about — the polls that I believe are more accurate are the ones when they ask Americans, “How do you feel about this issue or that issue?” And they give them a straight answer. The polls about politicians, “Who’s going to win?” The horse race type polls? Not trustworthy. Once again, we proved them wrong. But on the issues, where do the majority of Americans stand? You know this. The majority of Americans don’t believe that $7.25 an hour should be the minimum wage. The majority of Americans want paid family leave. They want paid sick leave. They want Medicare expanded for the elderly, for their parents. They believe that the climate catastrophe is actually happening. It’s real. They believe that a fertilized egg is not a human being and that Roe versus Wade, that was a good decision and it should not have been overturned by this religious Supreme Court that we have.
[00:14:17] I noticed this week that what the Iranians, the Ayatollah or whatever, they announced they’re going to disband the morality police, the ones that were going around and arresting women because they didn’t have a covering on their heads. Or they were cutting their hair. The morality police is being disbanded in Iran, but not in this country. Not where we have these six religious conservatives shoving their religious view on choice, on abortion, down our throats and forcing women to carry a pregnancy to term, whether they like it or not, because they are the morality police of the United States of America. That’s not the majority of Americans. The majority of Americans. I mean, every abortion ballot proposal that was on the ballot here last month, not just states like, you know, Michigan and California and Vermont that passed it. I’m talking about states like Kentucky and Montana and then Kansas earlier this summer. That’s the America we live in. We live in a blue America. The majority of Americans, whether they call themselves Democrats or not, they believe in what we believe in. That’s the good news. That’s what’s going to rule. This is really a great — it was a great day here on Tuesday when Senator Warnock won. I know again, I’m hearing the Debbie Downers, “Yeah, but Mike, look how many votes Herschel Walker got.” Yeah, that’s right. We’re in the fight for our lives here. That’s right. We have to get out and work and work and work again. This isn’t going to come easy. Nothing good does, right? Isn’t that the old cliche? It’s true. We the majority will have our say in this Democracy if we show up. If we do the work. The work that needs to be done in the next couple of years. But we did what had to be done here in the last month or two. And it’s resulted in us not only keeping the Senate, but increasing our numbers in the Senate. It’s allowed us to throw the House and the House Republicans into utter disarray to where we’re going to have a lot more control over how things are going to go. Now there’s also even more good blue news from this midterm election. But first, let me take a quick break to thank the underwriters who are supporting today’s episode of Rumble.
[00:17:08] So first off, today, I’d like to thank Trade Coffee. Thank you for underwriting this episode and supporting us here at Rumble with Michael Moore. Now, if you’re looking — all of you listening to me right now — if you’re looking for a great gift for the coffee lover in your life this holiday season, check out Trade Coffee. Trade. Coffee is a coffee subscription service that partners with the nation’s top rated independent roasters to send you coffee that they know you’ll love. And it comes fresh right to your door. So in our drip pot here this month at the Rumble Office, we’re drinking a roast from Greater Good’s Coffee Company down in Austin, Texas. It’s called Pick Me Up. It’s sweet, but balanced with a hint of apples and other dark stone fruit. So whether you already know what you like or you’re new to the specialty coffee, Trade Coffee makes it easy and convenient to discover new roasts and make your best cup of coffee at home every day. So right now, Trade Coffee is offering our listeners a total of $30 off a subscription and access for a limited time here to holiday specials at drinktrade.com/rumble. That’s drinktrade.com/rumble. You go there, you get $30 off your subscription because you heard it here on Rumble. Drinktrade.com/rumble.
[00:18:31] And then finally, I want to send out a huge thank you to Amazon Studios for underwriting this episode and for partnering with Amblin Entertainment to bring us their incredible documentary, Goodnight, Oppy. Goodnight, Oppy tells the inspirational true story of Opportunity, a rover that was sent to Mars for a 90 day mission but ended up surviving for 15 years. The film follows Opportunity’s groundbreaking journey on Mars and the remarkable bond forged between a robot and her humans millions of miles away. I’m telling you, my friends, you’ve got to see this film. The Los Angeles Times calls Goodnight, Oppy “a triumph, an incredible, true story, told with care and skill.” Deadline writes that it’s “irresistible, a richly rewarding cinematic experience.” This incredible film has already won five Critics Choice documentary awards, including Best Documentary Feature and Best Narration that is performed by none other than the amazing Angela Bassett. Goodnight, Oppy is up for consideration in all categories in this year’s Oscar competition, including best documentary feature. And the best part of it is it streaming right now for all of you, not just the Oscar voters, but for all of you to see it on Prime Video. So go check out this unforgettable film and my sincere thanks to Amazon Studios for supporting this podcast and for supporting my voice.
[00:20:01] Okay. We are back and we’ve gone over the good Senate news. But that’s not all, my friends. Look at what has happened across the States. Oh, my God, the States. We picked up two brand new governorships. Used to be you know, the Republicans had so many more governors than the Democrats. Now it’s 24 Democratic governors, 26 Republican governors, almost equal. Thanks to the blue tsunami that took place on November 8th. How about all the states where we now control, Democrats control, the House and the Senate — the state House, the state Senate, the state assembly? You know, we picked up four new states where the Democrats didn’t control the state House or Senate, and now they control both. Michigan, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Maryland. I know you think I was doing the alliteration there with all the ‘M’ states and I was going to say Mississippi, next stop. Sorry, not Mississippi, but we got four new states where we control the whole shebang. We have the governor’s seat, we have the House, and we have the Senate in these states. Oh no, the Blue Tsunami hit these states and the ballot proposals. The Blue Tsunami went into red states and did things like in Nebraska. In Nebraska, where they had a ballot proposal to raise the minimum wage by more than 50%. And it passed. In a red, a deep red, state this blue idea, this Democratic idea that the minimum wage should be at $15 or more dollars an hour. Some states, it’s $18 now and $19 or $20. That’s the Tsunami that has gone through this country where the vast majority of Americans agree with us on all these issues.
[00:22:16] We done good here, my friends. All of you did this. All of you. I know it was hard. I know a lot of you even on Election Day, you went to the polls and you thought, “Oh, I’m glad Mike’s saying all this but, you know, come on. The chance of this happening? Not good.” But why? Why? What would make you say that? Because I know you don’t own your own polling company. So how did you figure that out that we were going to do so bad? Why were you so worried? Turn the TV off. Turn the pundits off. Turn all the bloviators off. Stop listening to this. Trust yourself. You know where you live. This is the United States of America. And it’s a country that where the majority are not bigots, are not misogynists, are not haters. It’s a country where our young people are so active, so involved — record numbers of youth turnout in the election last month. Amazing. It’s a country where in some states, women show up more than men by ten percentage points. And where women, the majority of women, vote for the Democrat, not the Republican. Where the majority of the people of color — Black, Asian, Hispanic, Native American, Arab American — they vote for the Democrats. Not the Republican. That’s the country. Before the election, remember how many things did we have to read and tell us, “Oh, you know, these uh… The Hispanic the Latino voters are, yeah, the Republicans are picking up a lot of them.” How many times did we have to listen to that all through the summer and September and October? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong, wrong. Those of you who believed in us, even if you had your doubts, you made phone calls. You sent postcards. You knocked on doors. You did all of this. You made this happen. You created the Blue Tsunami. And nobody on television, in newspapers, nobody in the mainstream at least certainly, was saying that, you know, you were doing the right thing and you were thinking the right thing here because Democrats were going to put up a wall. We were going to protect the Senate. We were going to discombobulate the House for the Republicans. We were going to have all these victories in all the states across the country, the local elections, the ballot proposals. No. We were told we were nuts. We were told that we were crazy to think that that was going to happen. If any of you said in the weeks leading up to the election, “These Republicans are not going to take a single Democratic seat. We’re going to win every seat that we have up for reelection here at this election.” You would have gotten — no, but I mean, you know, I wasn’t let on TV. I was let on the last three days before the election, four days. By, you know, two or three good people on MSNBC to let me say this. Because it wasn’t even the narrative that was on any cable news — that we were going to win every single Democratic seat up for reelection. And every time I said it, well, not the hosts, the hosts, the anchors were good. They were good to me. And they let me say it. And they didn’t call me crazy.
[00:26:16] But you know the feeling, right? If you tried to tell anybody there was going to be a Blue Tsunami or a Blue Wall, that there was going to be no red wave, that they were not going to drown us, that we would remain holding power in our hands even when we don’t have the power, we have the power. Oh, my friends. Don’t ever let yourself sink to that kind of despair again. No president, I’ll say it one last time, no president, no Democratic president, no Republican president in these last 90 years has come through it without losing at least one of their Senate seats. We lost none. Biden became the first president since Franklin Roosevelt in the early ’30s to not lose a single friggin seat in the U.S. Senate. Unheard of, unexpected. And anybody who thought that that was going to turn out that way was denounced as cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I like Cocoa Puffs.
[00:27:32] It’s been a great month. It’s going to get even better. Just wait. Thank you, my friends. I’m so honored to be part of you. To be part of this greater good. The tens and tens and tens of millions of us who made this happen, who will make it happen again. If anybody thinks we’re done, just wait. It’s a blue day. Blue, blue. Blue is our world. I love all you guys. Thank you very much for being part of this. This is Rumble. I’m Michael Moore. Thanks so much. Here’s to our Blue Tsunami.
[ MUSIC: “Love Is Blue” — by Marty Robbins ]