The Michael Moore PodcastTranscripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
To read more about Episode 276, visit the main episode page.
Michael Moore [00:00:00] This is Rumble with Michael Moore. And there is so much chaos going on in the House right now, on the House floor in Congress. I just… What’s? What? Now they’re screaming — I don’t know. It’s… Kevin McCarthy trying to become the Speaker of the House. He’s been voted down three times in a row. They’re trying to go for a fourth vote here. But but he doesn’t have the votes and he’s now he’s — oh! Oh my — Let’s throw it to Kevin McCarthy right now.
Audio Excerpt from The Wizard of Oz:
[ Sound of the Wicked Witch of the West screaming ]
Michael Moore [00:00:31] Oh the humanity!
Audio Excerpt from The Wizard of Oz :
Wicked Witch of the West [00:00:33] “Look what you’ve done! I’m melting! Melting! Oh, my world. My world! Who would’ve thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness. [Screams] I’m going… Ohhh… Ohhhh…”
Michael Moore [00:00:54] And that is where we’re at. Honest to God, folks, I have not seen anything on TV this funny since maybe a couple of years ago. That Bo Burnham special on Netflix? That was hilarious. This though, send the Emmy for Best Comedy to the Republican Party in the United States Congress because what took place yesterday — I don’t know if you saw it, if you have a chance to go back and look at it— it was unbelievable. First time in 100 years where the party that had won control of the House was not able to elect its own speaker. And the Democrats had nothing to do with it. The Democrats didn’t get in the way. Democrats just voted for their guy, Hakeem Jeffries, a congressman from New York. There’s 222 Republicans, 212 Democrats. You need 218 votes to have the majority to win the job as Speaker of the House. And it was almost like this — if you had landed, if you came from another planet, you’re an alien and you land in the Congress yesterday, you would think, looking around, that the Democrats had won the House of Representatives. On the Democratic side, they’re all sitting there laughing, telling jokes. They brought their kids. One of the male congressmen had one of those papoose — what do they call it when you strap the kid on the front of you? What do you call that? Never looks safe to me. But there he is — he’s walking up and down, this Democrat, with his baby on his chest. You got other kids running around. It looks like there’s some kind of party going on on the Democratic side of the House floor. On the other side, there is a friggin civil war.
[00:02:55] The day began yesterday with Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, calls them into a private room, all the Republicans, like, “Let’s get this worked out. Let’s not go out there and make it look like fools. You know, we need the 218 votes.” But there were at least four or five hardcore right wingers that no way were they going to vote for Kevin McCarthy — for reasons I still don’t quite understand. But I guess they see him as, not as a moderate or certainly not a sympathizer for the Democrats, he’s been backed by Trump to be the Speaker of the House, but they got into some screaming match with each other. They started dropping F-bombs and cursing at each other. And it just — the whole thing came unglued. Then they came out on the floor of the House. And, you know, literally, if you are watching this on TV, you’re watching the wheels of a clown car coming off one at a time. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And this is the party that supposedly won. How often have we had to listen to the media tell us for almost two months now that “The Republicans have won the House of Representatives, the Republicans will control the House of Representatives. It’s going to be a Republican controlled House.” Control? Not if you tuned in yesterday. No control. It was nothing but chaos and pandemonium. Nobody knew what to do. McCarthy, who’s supposedly the leader, couldn’t lead. And then just the whole scene on the Republican side — you’ve got 222 sitting there, but 118 are insurrectionists and election deniers. They’re all in there — were in the house on January 6, 2021, when after a 6-hour deadly insurgency and riot by right wing Republicans outside and inside the Capitol building, and a few hours later, when they are able to restore order to the House, these 118 they voted to not certify Joe Biden as the duly elected president of the United States. What the rioters were unable to do during the day with violence, they would finish the mission of the insurgency. Because they had a right to vote, they would vote to essentially overthrow the government, overturn the election. And that’s what they did. That’s what they did. They voted not to certify Biden. Fortunately, they lost.
[00:05:31] But this group, they came back in there yesterday because they got reelected. They’re all in there. They’re all in there being seated after committing this treasonous act of trying to overturn the election on the night of January 6 that year. Constitution says — Amendment 14, Section 3 — that if you participate in an insurgency or a rebellion and you’ve taken an oath as a member of Congress and you’ve participated in this, or if you’ve given aid and comfort to those who are trying to promote and participate in an insurgency, you are not allowed to take your seat in the Congress or to hold any public office in this country. And yet they’ve allowed in nearly 120 Republicans who participated in the coup attempt back on January 6, 2021. All right? So you’ve got all these insurrectionists who’ve been reelected to Congress running around on the House floor.
[ MUSIC interlude: The Benny Hill Show Theme song ]
[00:06:39] Now, on top of that, you’ve got at least a half a dozen real right wing Republicans who hate Kevin McCarthy, their leader, and they don’t want to vote for him for Speaker of the House, so they’re all running around the House floor and they’re convincing more and more Republicans not to vote for the Republican that’s running for Speaker of the House.
[ MUSIC interlude: The Benny Hill Show Theme song ]
[00:07:06] And then you’ve got this one lone man sitting in the very last row on the House floor all by himself. Everyone shunning him. Parents pulling their children away from him. And he’s just sitting there by himself. It’s George Santos, or so we think it is. And he’s got leprosy.
[ MUSIC interlude: The Benny Hill Show Theme song ]
[00:07:35] So George Santos is there and he’s tweeting out, “I just got sworn into office by the Speaker of the House.” No, you weren’t. There was no Speaker. That’s what you were sitting there while they’re trying to have ballot after ballot to get McCarthy the speaker, he was never elected yesterday. So the first thing you send out from the floor of Congress is a lie.
[ MUSIC interlude: The Benny Hill Show Theme song ]
[00:08:04] Oh, man, It was crazy, crazy watching this yesterday. And every time they’d hold a vote for who should be speaker of the House, who comes in first? The Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York. He wins every vote for Speaker of the House, even though the Republicans have more representatives.
[ MUSIC interlude: The Benny Hill Show Theme song ]
[00:08:33] It was the best comedy I have seen in ages.
[ MUSIC interlude: The Benny Hill Show Theme song ]
[00:08:44] Now, Jeffries didn’t show up expecting to be Speaker of the House, and yet here he wins the first round. Again, if you were that alien from Mars or wherever, you’d think again, the Democrats had won the House of Representatives. They’re all relaxed. They’re still telling jokes. Everybody’s giving Nancy a hug. And Hakeem Jeffries gets more votes than the Republican, kevin McCarthy So they call for another ballot. They hold another roll call vote of all 435. Actually, there’s one person didn’t show up. But as I told you, after the November election, they started dropping like flies. In the last Congress, 16 elected members of Congress never made it to the end of the two-year term either because they passed away or they were brought up on charges, scandals, indictments. They got caught doing something. So they quit or they decided to go run for another office or whatever. But we already have, sadly, one member of Congress who passed away since the election, and now we have one that didn’t show up yesterday. And of course, you got the liar from Long Island, the Long Island liar, sitting there. I don’t know how long he’s going to actually last. But we’ve got 434 voting and you’ve got Hakeem Jeffries with the most votes, but he doesn’t have the 218 either, 218 votes, so they have a have a second ballot. On the second ballot, the tally was Hakeem Jeffries in first place with 212 votes, Kevin McCarthy in second place with, again, 203 votes, and then Jim Jordan in third place — Biggs dropped out — so Jim Jordan with 19 votes. 19! Wait a minute, this started in the morning with only 4 or 5 Republicans saying that they were going to vote against and try to block McCarthy from winning. Now it’s grown from 4 to 19. Wow. So the look on McCarthy’s face… So they’re going to go to a third vote. All of a sudden, now, these these henchmen, these other congressmen that are sitting there with McCarthy, there’s a shot of the table and McCarthy is sitting there alone. I’m like, “Oh, my God, his own people are deserting him.” Later, somebody got Trump on the phone and said, “Do you still support him for speaker?” “Well, I’m just going to see how this all turns out.” That’s what Trump says, because, of course, he can never support a loser. So now McCarthy’s all alone. Now they’re calling the third roll call. And now Jordan’s gone from 19 to 20 votes. McCarthy’s got 202 votes and Hakeem Jeffries, number one, in first place with 212 votes.
[00:11:36] So on the day that the “losing” Democrats are supposed to have lost all this power, the day ends, they have to adjourn and there is no Speaker of the House. There is no Republican control. There’s no control at all going on in there. And they decided to wait until today — I’m speaking to you here on, this is Wednesday morning. So they’re going to convene again at noon today and do a 4th ballot. This has only happened one time in our entire history of this country where it went to more than one or two ballots. This is now going to be the 4th ballot. Last time it happened, I think it was 1855 and it went for days. They did ballots every day for two full months. That is the logjam that has now been created. And, you know, the Democrats have not caused this. They’re just over there telling jokes and slapping each other in the back and having a good time. You know, they haven’t broken out the wine coolers yet, but, you know, they’ll get to it. But the Republican side still just looks like a crazy mess. They wheeled in a bunch of pizzas last night. There’s pizza boxes somewhere laying around, half eaten pizzas. Just total insanity. And I couldn’t have been happier. I was laughing so hard. How do we luck out like this? How do we… Because, you know, we’re not usually this lucky — whether you’re progressive or liberal or you call yourself a Democrat, you belong to the Democratic Party, you’re an independent, but you voted for the Democrats this time, whatever it is. You know, and look, we we put up a big Blue Wall. We stopped the red wave. McCarthy said they were going to win 60 new seats in the House, and what did they end up winning? Eight, eight or nine more? That’s it. So it’s a big embarrassing moment for them. And as each vote has progressed, McCarthy keeps losing more votes. Hakeem Jeffries continues to stay in first place as the, right now, I guess, the unofficial victor of Speaker of the House. Oh, man. I know you say to yourself sometimes, “Maybe there is a God in heaven.” Come on, admit it. Because in moments like this, how do you explain it? The stars never line up for the liberal lefty end of things here, right? And yet here we are. Hakeem Jeffries holding court over on the Democratic side of things here. The Republicans unable to elect their own Speaker. They hold the most votes. You know, this is going to start again at noon today. I can’t… I just… I’m canceling everything today. I’m just going to sit and watch this. Best comedy of the year.
[00:14:40] Before we get too much further here, let me give a shout out and a thank you to our underwriters of today’s historic episode. First up, a huge, huge thank you to our long time underwriter, Stamps.com. Stamps is a one-stop-shop for all your shipping and mailing needs. Within minutes of signing up, you can print your own postage right from your home, right from your own computer. And the best part, Stamps.com has teamed up with the United States Post Office and UPS to get you huge mailing and shipping discounts up to 86% off. And they’ll automatically tell you what your cheapest and fastest shipping options are. No guessing, no overpaying. So start the new year by saving serious money on your mailing and your shipping. Get started with Stamps.com today. Sign up with a promo code: “MOORE” for a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage, plus a free digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts are required. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the page and enter the code: “MOORE”.
[00:15:49] I’d also like to thank our other underwriter for this episode, and that is Rocket Money. Rocket money formerly known as TrueBill, is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, it monitors your spending and helps you lower your bills all in one place. And what better time to rethink all of the subscriptions that you’ve forgotten about — I know I have — than the start of a new year. Rocket Money makes canceling subscriptions as easy as a click of a button. Simply find the subscriptions you don’t want and press cancel and Rocket Money will cancel it for you. No more long hold times on the phone with customer service or tedious emailing back and forth. Over 3 million people have used Rocket Money saving the average person up to $720 a year paying for things you’re not participating in, you’re not reading. It’s just money out the window. So stop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions and manage your expenses the easy way by going to RocketMoney.com/rumble. That’s RocketMoney.com/rumble. RocketMoney.com/rumble. And thank you Rocket Money for supporting this podcast and for supporting my voice.
[00:17:09] So the Democrats only need to flip 4 Republicans. Why not do that? Then you would have the 218 votes that you need. Here’s what I don’t understand, and this is why we often do lose, because the people that represent us in public office are oftentimes, especially in the past, don’t want to play hardball. They they want to play Kumbaya. I mean, there’s that many Republicans that barely won in November. And they won reelection in a district that has now turned blue. In other words, their congressional district is a majority Democratic district, which means their chance of winning in the next election is not very good. And if they were smart, they’d switch parties right now, declare themselves a Democrat, caucus/vote with the Democrats. If they can’t say they’re a Democrat, just say you’re an Independent, but you’re going to caucus with the Democrats. If they did that, first of all, the Democrats would control the House immediately and they would then have the votes to elect Hakeem Jeffries as the Speaker of the House. And all this talk about how the Republicans won the House goes right out the window. And the Democrats control the House for the next two years. That could happen if we had Democratic Party leaders who really knew how to play hardball and knew their political science. Because what you do is you go to those 4, 5, 6 moderate, “liberal” Republicans and you say, “You know, you’re not part of this anymore. The whole Trump thing has been a disaster. It’s essentially killed the Republican Party. Come on over. Leave the dark side. Come to the light.” Then you barter with them. Ask them what committee they want to be the chair of — give it to them. Roll the red carpet out for them. Do whatever you can do legally to get them on our side. We just need a few of them and suddenly we’re the majority. Suddenly, Jeffries is the Speaker of the House. I know that’ll be the end of this incredible 2-3 episode comedy that we’ve been watching here. But you know, this is government. They need to govern. We need to get some serious laws passed. We have the Senate still. And with one extra vote, because we picked up a Republican seat on our side. So we could get a lot done.
[00:19:49] And yes, it’s not that there won’t be bumps in the road. It’s not that Manchin and Sinema aren’t still there. They are, but a hell of a lot better than how it felt on November 9th for some people. So… I don’t know if anybody is listening, anybody that works for these representatives, these Democrats in Congress. This is the day to do some horse trading. This is the day to reach your hand out to those Republicans who are representing blue Democratic districts and bring them over. Well, that’s just me, I know — whistling in the wind. There goes Mike again. I guess the last thing I want to say about this is that if you have been fearful of the Republicans or Trump or Trump coming back or whatever, if you just watch a few minutes of this, you are going to relax, greatly relax. Your anxiety will go down. Your despair will go down. You’ll realize that even if they figure out some way out of the mess that they’re in on the Speaker of the House issue, they are going to have the most difficult time getting along with each other and trying to get things through that they are never going to be able to get through. And of course, if they do get it through, it goes to the Senate and the Democrats will kill it right there. So, the power they hold really is no power. We saw what they’re capable of yesterday, which is a complete inability to govern. I’m telling you, this couldn’t have been a greater early January gift to be able to see that when all else fails, you can count on the Republicans to not be able to find their way out of a paper bag. So. Spirits up, everyone. We have an interesting two years ahead of us. Right now, there is no control of the House. They’re not going to get jack done. I mean, seriously. Fear not fellow Americans and people around the world. I wouldn’t say we’re in good hands tonight, but we’re in about as good a hands as you can get in this country right now. So I’ll take that for the time being. And the rest of us we’ll keep doing our work.
[00:22:07] If you haven’t had a chance to listen to the 12 episode series that I’m in the middle of right now here on my podcast, “Blue Dots in a Red Sea: How to Win When You’re Blue in a Red State”, we’ve done eight episodes so far. We’ve got four more episodes to go. This week — these are little, mini-episodes. Give it a listen. Especially if you live in a red state or you have family or friends that live in a red state. I provide the secret sauce for how we can start getting more Democrats elected in these red areas. We did a lot of it on November 8th — a lot of Democrats elected in red states and ballot proposals passed in red states, ballot proposals that you and I support. So there’s good news ahead there, too. If you have a chance to listen to this little mini series within the Rumble podcast, I encourage you to do that. We’ll be back tomorrow with a new episode of that. Thanks, everybody. Thanks to my producer and editor, Angela Vargos. Thanks to all of you who participate in this Democracy. It’s been the most amazing 24 hours and it’s going to continue today at noon. They say we lost the House on November 8th. Is it possible that we’re going to end up winning? But in order to do that, we had to lose. The losers became the winners, the champions of the world.
[ MUSIC: “We Are The Champions” — Queen ]