Transcripts 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 320, visit the main episode page.

Michael Moore [00:00:14] Hello, everyone. This is Michael Moore. Welcome to my podcast. What a week this has been. I hope you are as overjoyed overwhelmed as I am. Seeing the response to the incredibly brave and correct decision that President Biden made. Thank you, President Biden, for listening to us. We cared deeply for you the night of that debate, and at least on my part, I did not want to see you have to suffer through this any longer. You’ve done too much good and have been there for this country. You are our most progressive president ever, and we’re going to have to work out what happened here with Gaza and Netanyahu and fix this mess. I’m sure you will participate in that. I’m sure you have some ideas and this has to happen. I know you know that. And thank you for not giving up on it, or us or the people in the Middle East. 

[00:01:25] So my friends, 100 days from today is November 5th. Election day. 100 days from today. I mean, I have to ask, he’s probably not listening, but does Trump even know what happened this week? It took just five days. This week. It took just five days. Nothing like it had ever happened before in American history. And yet by this past Thursday, a mere five days after President Biden’s 1:46 p.m. Sunday afternoon announcement of him ending his reelection campaign and handing the candidacy over to his Vice President, Kamala Harris. Just five days. And that’s all it took for the Wall Street Journal on Thursday — you know the Wall Street Journal, right? No friend to women, People of Color, young voters, the poor, the working class, the Wall Street Journal, this grand oracle of capitalism, conservative ideology, and the force that is Rupert Murdoch. That newspaper ran this stunning historic headline. And, I mean, I looked at it and I said, “Wow, this is one for the ages.” Ready for it. This is all it said: “Harris Erases Trump’s Lead, WSJ Poll Finds”. “Harris Erases Trump’s Lead” — Wow. That’s how long it took. Five days. 

[00:03:18] Kamala Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants. Two genius parents, one a Stanford economist, the other a brilliant Berkeley scientist — both of them active in the 1960s civil rights movement. It’s actually where they met. Protesting for civil rights. Participating in their beloved adopted country, the United States of America. And proud to have their children amongst the first to integrate a public school in California. Yes, those were the parents of Kamala Harris and her sister. But now it’s 2024. And this Kamala Harris last Sunday was accepting the all but certain nomination to be the Democratic Party candidate for President of the United States. And, it should be noted, the chance to become the first woman ever to hold this esteemed office. Yes. That was just one week ago. Can you believe this? A euphoric nation exploded in a joyful belief that finally, the promise of the American Dream was no longer just a “promise,” nor a “dream.” But a roaring reality that immediately took off like a rocket. 

[00:04:54] And each day this week has set a new record for any presidential campaign ever. Let me just give you the list of a few of these records from this week. There was a record smashing surge of volunteers across all the key swing states, and a total of 170,000 volunteers signing up throughout the nation. They’re still coming in. It was also the biggest one day haul of campaign contributions ever. And 60% of those contributions to Harris were from first-time donors. The total overall take this week is more than $350 million as of today. We also this week saw the largest Zoom call ever for a campaign meeting. Okay, this was a Harris, you know, you just call and be part of the Zoom if you want to be part of the campaign. There were 160,000 participants on this Zoom. I mean, my computer screen only holds about 140,000 little squares of everybody — no, I’m kidding. But they worked with Zoom, and they got them to keep adding more and more of whatever you need to add to their servers. Also this week we had the most people ever to register to vote over a 48-hour period. 40,000 people registered to vote in those first two days, at the beginning of the week. And of the convention delegates, within just three days, 85% of the delegates — that was about 3400 of them — endorsed Harris after she’d only been a candidate, as I said, for three days. And this was a full four weeks before the convention was even supposed to start. Wow. 

[00:07:00] Look, historians and political scientists if you’ve had the TV on or reading about it, they all agree that this level of enthusiasm this quickly is unheard of in modern American politics. And of course, Trump is furious. He said he’s planning to sue, to, “keep Harris off the ballot.” He says this was a big switcheroo — I planned my whole campaign that I was going to be going up against Biden, and now they pull this! Yeah, Donald. That’s how the world works. You’re going to keep Harris off the ballot? Well, good luck with that, because it won’t work. 

[00:07:52] Apparently, somewhere along the way, Trump Van Winkle must have fallen into a deep sleep and missed the memo that many white men like him also seem to miss. It read something like this: “America is no longer your America — you, the members of the exclusive club for the gender that’s missing the second X chromosome. You know, the one that makes you prone to war, violent outburst, something called “mansplaining,” harassing the other gender, dying on average six years before that other gender — and yet still holding the majority of the wealth, the property, the tee times and most of the seats in Congress (72% of those seats currently are in the hands of men). That America, my friends, is being shown the door. 

[00:08:52] Here’s what the new America looks like. Just listen to these statistics: 79% of the United States is either female (that’s 51% of the country), Persons of Color (that’s 42% of the country), or young adults between the ages of 18 and 39 — and they make up 42% of the country. So it’s either one of those three demographics you belong to, or two of them, or maybe all three of them. Some combination of all that gives us 79% of the country right now is either female, young, a Person of Color, or combination of those three. My friends, this country is female, it’s young, and it’s not-so-white anymore. Now, of course, hearing it described that way — hey, don’t worry, guys, I’m not leaving you out of this. I’m just saying that that’s the country we live in now. And it’s really not the best place to run for president if your three main personality traits are misogyny, bigotry and sounding like everyone’s uncle Don. 

[00:10:06] Oh, and there’s also this… You want to know the truth about who your fellow Americans really are? I’ve pulled this together from all the various Gallup polls, Associated Press, CNN — just listen to these statistics, because they don’t promote this a lot in the media. This is who your fellow Americans are, my friends. This is the country you live in: 69% of Americans support legal abortion. 72% of Americans don’t own a gun. Wow. 90% of the country wants more gun control laws. 90%. So that’s Democrats, Republicans, Independents. That’s the country we live in. 72% of us believe that the climate crisis is real. 71% of all Americans approve of labor unions. Wow. 79% of us insist that the rich must pay more in taxes. 76% of us want a much higher minimum wage. 70% of all voters in this country believe marijuana should be legal. 73% of the country wants student loan debt relief. 74% of Americans want more affordable homes. 65% support term limits on all Supreme Court justices. 84% of Americans want free Pre-K and 3-K for their youngsters. 69% of Americans support same sex marriage. 65% of Americans want to end the Electoral College. 89% of Americans oppose gerrymandering. 70% of us are demanding a permanent ceasefire in Gaza now. 72% of Americans want money removed from politics. And 70% of Millennials say they would likely vote for a Socialist candidate. 70% of Millennials. That is who we are. 

[00:12:36] Mr. Trump, how do you expect to win when what you believe in is the opposite of what more than two thirds of the country believes in on these 18 top issues I’ve just gone over? You’re running a campaign as a right-wing, whackadoodle in a country that has seriously moved to the Left. The majority of Americans hate what you stand for. Just look at those poll numbers I’ve just given you. Those percentages didn’t come from me. They come from Gallup, The Associated Press, Pew Research, various networks. They come from the American people. 

[00:13:23] And finally, one last powerful fact. The Republican for president on the ballot has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. Wow. Since 1988, the American people have made it abundantly clear they don’t want a Republican running the show. Only once, in those 36 years, did the American people say, “Yeah, well, let’s let a Republican in there for four years.” And that was in ’04 and they only one by one state, Ohio, by a hundred thousand votes. Overwhelmingly, the people vote for the Democrat on the ballot to be in the White House, to represent them in the U.S. Senate where there’s no gerrymandering in those Senate elections because the entire state votes, no map is drawn. The only reason that we were ever stuck with George W Bush and Donald Trump is because the Founders created the Electoral College in order to appease the slave states and try to avoid a civil war. And, well, you know, that seemed to work out okay. But here’s the kicker: The majority of these three massive groups I just went over, the three demographic groups — young people, women, People of Color — they vote for the Democrat in nearly every single election. 51% of all women vote Democratic. 61% of all young people vote Democratic, and 83% of all African Americans vote Democratic. So those three groups and a combination of all their demographics make up about 79% now of the population. And while 60% of the white guys over 45 will indeed vote for Trump, don’t worry about it. First of all, 40% of those white guys won’t. That means potentially another 14 million white dude votes for Kamala Harris. 

[00:15:45] So what’s the takeaway here? It’s quite simple. Are you ready? I’ll say it slow if you want to write this down: There are more of us than there are of them. We are now the Majority. We, America, are a liberal nation. Doesn’t matter, from abortion to climate, to the economy, to the Millennials who would vote for a Socialist, that’s who we are now. And we’re going to elect the first woman, a black woman, no less, to be the President of the United States. 

[00:16:31] So what could possibly go wrong? I know, right? Typical question that any liberal should ask themselves in this country. I’ll tell you what could go wrong. The only way that Trump can win in November is if liberals and Democrats stay home. But why would that happen? Well, the unthinkable. A certain skill set that many Democrats have repeated ad infinitum would have to take place. These, of course, what I’m going to list, these things, it’s probably our greatest fear because we’ve seen it happen so many times. So much disappointment. I’ll just give you four examples of how this could go south. 

[00:17:20] For instance, if the candidate, in this case Kamala Harris, suddenly starts taking “centrist” positions in order not to offend anyone, yet in doing so, she ends up offending everyone — that is, the Majority of Americans who, as I’ve just pointed out, are liberal left and progressive women, People of Color, young people and the working class. Well, let me just give you my take on this. That is not going to happen. She is not going to do that. 

[00:18:03] Or, here’s another example, if Harris continues Biden’s embrace of Netanyahu, and America’s funding of and the arming of the slaughter in Gaza, this will hand the state of Michigan over to Trump, and that will put him in the White House. Michigan has 200,000 registered Muslim voters and 300,000 Michiganders of Middle Eastern or North African descent. Well, I think one way to fix things in Michigan would be for Vice President Harris and her running mate to make a major announcement in Detroit on a stage with numerous area Arab Americans, Muslims and leaders of a wide ranging coalition of Jewish peace groups to offer her action plan as to what she and Biden can do right now to keep their initial promise to Netanyahu — what they told him that if he uses American tax dollars or weapons to violate international law and human rights, such assistance from the U.S. will be withheld. In fact, this is exactly what Biden said to Bibi in October: “When America experienced the hell of 9/11, we felt enraged as well… [And] we made mistakes. So I caution the government of Israel not to be blinded by rage.” In other words, his warning to Netanyahu was: Do not do what we did to Iraq, and to ourselves. Netanyahu then did the opposite of what Biden warned him not to do. And after each Israeli round of carpet bombings, obliterating hospitals, schools, childcare centers, refugee camps, with hundreds and then thousands of Palestinian bodies piled higher and higher, Biden would admonish Netanyahu. And tell him that we were going to have to cease supplying him with an unlimited supply of American tax dollars and weapons. And then each time, President Biden, already in obvious decline, seemed not to know what to do. Or how to handle the horror he had personally unleashed on the good people of Palestine. And so it continues to this day. There is no place anywhere on this planet outside of the Arab and Muslim world, with as many Arab and Muslim souls, than in the state of Michigan. 

[00:21:22] Or here’s another thing that could happen: Vice President Harris appoints Josh Shapiro as her vice presidential candidate. And this, too, may result in losing Michigan. Shapiro said that it’s, “antisemitic” for anyone to join the boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel in order to convince them to stop their apartheid behavior. He has also cruelly compared the peaceful college students to the Ku Klux Klan because they were calling for an end to the slaughter in Gaza. Actions like these will diminish the Arab American vote for Harris and depress a large swath of the youth vote throughout the country. I really hope somebody is listening to me right now. As Michelle Goldberg of The New York Times has written, “Biden is in danger of losing Michigan, and, with it, the whole election.” Also, more than two dozen public education advocacy groups have asked Vice President Harris not to choose Shapiro as her running mate because, as they stated in their letter to her on Wednesday, we respectfully ask you not to select Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who has supported education policies mirroring Project 2025. As we Michiganders, as you may know, remember we gave you, the world, we gave you Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. So we are especially concerned about even the slightest whittling away of our public schools. And we, too, ask Vice President Harris, respectfully, to pick a running mate who is a million miles away from any of these efforts. 

[00:23:25] And finally, should Harris decide to do the bidding of the wealthy, who are now lining up with big checks so they can try to control her, this would clearly put her on the side against workers and consumers. Here’s a case in point: This week, Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, gave her $7 million. What will he want for his money? He’s already actually stated what he wants: a quid pro quo. He wants the removal of one of Biden’s best appointments, the head of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan. She is on a mission to break up the monopolies and to police corporate America in the hopes of stopping them from doing more harm. Hoffman and other big money donors want to stop her. Hoffman has no shame in stating what he expects in return for a $7 million donation to the Harris campaign: “I would hope that Vice President Harris would replace the head of the Federal Trade Commission.” Will Harris do what she is told? I don’t think so. My hope is no. Absolutely not. But as many have said, the Democrats are pros at snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. 

[00:25:00] Yeah, as I see it, that’s the only way we can lose. If too many people sense it’s the same old political hoo-ha, you know, the Democratic Party and doing their same old thing, then the vote for the Democratic Party in November will be seriously depressed. Millions will stay stuck in their despair, and all of this could lead to a Trump victory. 

[00:25:29] This must not happen.  

[00:25:35] The overwhelming jolt of joy from this last week must continue, but with action. And that is where you and I come in. In my next podcast, over the next few days, I’ll come back to you here and I’ll reveal to you a blueprint/playbook/battle plan for what we millions, the Majority, must do over these next 100 days. I think you’re going to like this. It includes simple things that we all can do. It’ll be fun. You’ll meet new friends. There’s door prizes. You might become a local hero. And we’re all going to party like it’s 2029. 

Michael Moore [00:26:52] So, before I continue, I’d like to take a moment to thank our underwriters for this week’s episode. First up is Babbel. As you know by now, I’m a huge fan of Babbel. Babbel is the language learning app — you know, you learn foreign languages. And if you’re like me and you’ve always wanted to learn a new language, well, you should check this out. It’s conversation based learning designed by over 200 expert linguists. And the lessons are only ten minutes long, so it’s really easy to fit this into your schedule. If you prefer a live classroom experience like, you know, with an actual teacher, but from the comfort of your own couch, they’ve also got what they call Babbel Live classes. They’re available anytime, day or night. In as little as three weeks, you could be speaking Spanish or Turkish or Danish or any one of their other languages. So join me and millions of other people around the world that use Babbel. And here’s a special deal for you, our listeners: Right now, get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription, but only for our listeners. And you do that by going to babbel.com/rumble. You heard me right — you’re going to get up to 60% off at babbel.com/rumble. Rules and restrictions of course, may apply. Thank you, Babbel, for supporting this podcast and supporting my voice. 

[00:28:22] I also want to take this opportunity to thank, once again, our longtime underwriter, Shopify. So, if you got an idea to start your own online shop, maybe to support your family or to raise money for a cause that you care about, or if you already have your own brick and mortar store but are looking for ways to grow, check out Shopify. Shopify is, of course, the global commerce platform that has supported millions of people around the world at every stage, from their first sale to their millionth. They’ve got an all-in-one e-Commerce platform for online shops and in-person POS systems for actual physical stores. And the best part? They have extensive help resources to support you every step of the way. That’s why we have used Shopify here on this podcast, and why 10% of all e-Commerce in the U.S. is powered by Shopify. So start growing your business today and checkout Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/rumble, and make sure this time you put rumble all in lowercase. Go to shopify.com/rumble right now to grow your business, no matter what stage you’re in. Shopify.com/rumble with rumble all in lowercase. And thank you, Shopify, for supporting all the good work we’re trying to do. 

[00:29:49] Man. It’s been some week, hasn’t it? Just exhilarating to think of the possibilities of what may happen here. And I thought we’d close the podcast here today with — our ending would be the beginning, actually. The beginning of Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate for President of the United States. I want to play her first speech that she gave last Monday afternoon in Wilmington, Delaware, at the campaign headquarters — the place that was the headquarters for the Biden/Harris campaign. And overnight, they’d switched the signs. And it began with President Biden phoning in from his Covid bed, welcoming everybody and thanking his staff for all their hard work, telling them he was sorry that he couldn’t continue, but he was putting country ahead of his personal life, personal ambitions — maybe even ahead of what he thought was best. And yet, this is how lucky we were to have him and still have him. He did something that will be remembered throughout history. So let’s start with hopefully our next President of the United States. I happened to have the TV on when this began. She walked out and man, I’ll tell you, she was on fire. Here she is, her first words as the official candidate in front of her staff in Wilmington, Delaware this past Monday. 

Vice President Kamala Harris [00:31:26] You know, as many of you know, before I was elected as Vice President, before I was elected as United States Senator, I was the elected Attorney General, as I’ve mentioned, to California, and before that I was a courtroom prosecutor. In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type. And in this campaign, I will proudly, I will proudly put my record against his. As a young prosecutor, when I was in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in California, I specialized in cases involving sexual abuse. Donald Trump was found liable by a jury for committing sexual abuse. As Attorney General of California, I took on one of our country’s largest for-profit colleges and put it out of business. Donald Trump ran a for-profit college, Trump University, that was forced to pay $25 million to the students it scammed. As district attorney, to go after polluters, I created one of the first environmental justice units in our nation. Donald Trump stood in Mar-A-Lago and told big oil lobbyists he would do their bidding for a $1 billion campaign contribution. During the foreclosure crisis, I took on the big Wall Street banks and won $20 billion for California families, holding those banks accountable for fraud. Donald Trump was just found guilty of 34 counts of fraud. 

But make no mistake, all of that being said, this campaign is not just about us versus Donald Trump. There is more to this campaign than that. Our campaign has always been about two different versions of what we see as the future of our country, two different visions for the future of our country. One focused on the future. The other focused on the past. Donald Trump wants to take our country backward to a time before many of our fellow Americans had full freedoms and rights. But we believe in a brighter future that makes room for all Americans. We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead. We believe in a future where no child has to grow up in poverty. Where every person can buy a home, start a family, and build wealth, and where every person has access to paid family leave and affordable childcare. That’s the future we see. Together we fight to build a nation where every person has affordable health care. Where every worker is paid fairly and where every senior can retire with dignity. All of this is to say, building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency. Because we here know when our middle class is strong, America is strong. And we know that’s not the future Donald Trump is fighting for. He and his extreme Project 2025 will weaken the middle class and bring us backward. Please do note that. Back to the failed trickle down policies that gave huge tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations, and made working families pay the cost. Back to policies that put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block, back to policies that treat health care as only a privilege for the wealthy, instead of what we all know it should be, which is a right for every American. America has tried these economic policies before. They do not lead to prosperity, and they lead to inequity and economic injustice. And we are not going back. 

Our fight for the future is also a fight for freedom. Generations of Americans before us have led the fight for freedom — from our Founders to our Framers, to the Abolitionists and the Suffragettes, to the Freedom Riders and Farm Workers. And now I say, team, the baton is in our hands. We who believe in the sacred freedom to vote, we who are committed to fight to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, we who believe in the freedom to live safe from gun violence — and that’s why we will work to pass universal background checks, red flag laws and an assault weapons ban. We who will fight for reproductive freedom knowing if Trump gets the chance, he will sign a national abortion ban to outlaw abortion in every single state. But we are not going to let that happen. It is this team here that is going to help in this November to elect a majority of members of the United States Congress who agree the government should not be telling a woman what to do with her body. And when Congress passes a law to restore reproductive freedoms, as President of the United States, I will sign it into law. 

So ultimately, to all the friends here I say, in this election, we know we each face a question: What kind of country do we want to live in? A country of freedom, compassion and rule of law? Or a country of chaos, fear and hate?  You all are here because you, as leaders know, we each, including our neighbors and our friends and our family, we each, as Americans, have the power to answer that question. That’s the beauty of it, the power of the people. We each have the ability to answer that question. So in the next 106 days, we have work to do. We have doors to knock on. We have people to talk to. We have phone calls to make. And we have an election to win. So, are you ready to get to work? [Crowd cheers] Do we believe in opportunity? [Crowd cheers] Do we believe in the promise of America? [Crowd cheers] And are we willing to fight for it? [Crowd cheers] And when we fight — 

Crowd We win! 

Vice President Kamala Harris God bless you all and God bless the United States of America and Joe Biden. 

Michael Moore [00:41:10] Thanks for listening today. This was our big kickoff here of the 100 days that we have now, to get rid of any idea that Trump has, that he thinks he’s reentering the Oval Office, that is not going to happen, and all the work that we have to do now to make sure this happens. It will not happen on its own, but it is very doable. And as we’ve seen from this last week, millions, millions are ready. I’ll be back with part two of this kickoff of the 100 days of how we are going to stop Trump, and how we are going to elect Kamala Harris as the next President of the United States. Take care, everyone, and we’ll talk soon.