With Margaret Hoover is made possible by. Additional fundi is provided is. Corporate fundinrovided by. Michael moore, welc firing line. Thank you so much for having me here. Youre an academawardwinning filmmaker, and more than that, you created a new genre of documtary films that really drove the National Discourse about key issues in our country, from the iraq war to guns to healthcare. And youve now started a new podcast rumble with michael moore. Right. I dont want people to forget that in 2016, early, u called who was going to win the president ial election. Yeah, sadly. I never wanted to be more wrong, but i live in michigan, so i saw what was going. And so, i dont know it was heur or five months before election, i just said, donald trump is going to bere the nextdent, and hes going to win by winning michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania. Bill maher show, wason the booed by the audience. Im gonna show the clip. Here is exactly when you said it. Lets take a look. Im sorry to have to kind of be the buzzkill here so early, t i think trump is going to win. I im sorry. You know what . Boo if you wt. I am glayoure saying it. I dont want to say it. No, no. The enemy is complacency. So, why did you know . E cadrive on the roads of michigan, and i saw trump signs everywhere, and i saw no hillary signs. And st the way people in michigan were so angry inout the last 20 or 30 years of l all the industrial jobs, or mosf hem, and. Nobody in shington was listening to them. They didnt so much like trump as a person people d a lot of problems with him but they wanted to throw a molotov cocktail into the system that had made eir lives so difficult. So, i dont know if people are listening now,ut you have a prediction for 2020 . An well, iust say do you have a prediction for 2020 . I dont know if its so much, a prediction, gain, because im paying attention to where people are at, i think its very possle that trump he lost the popular voteil tory by 3 million votes. I think hell lose the popular vote again to whoever the democrat is illion to 5 million votes and could still win the Electoral College and get four more years. Most of the polling, now, suggests that trump is not going to win it again, at least at this moment. Y part because of what we did in 18. We really blew out the republicans. We removed all of them from lansing, from the state capital. The top four positionsere all reblican a couple years ago. Now theyre all democrats, and they are a female governor, a black lieutenant governor, a lesbian attorney general, and a single mom whos the secretary of state. Guys, but we remov these, white white men from power and replaced them with the majorit of the country, which again 70 female, pele of color, young adults. So, no offense to white guys, but youre supporting Bernie Sanders. , ym not a selfhating white guy. I just i dont want the white men who are watching this, i know its feeling like the women are taking ove you know, its its okay, guys. Were gonna be okay. Women like us. Mostly. But youre supporting Bernie Sanders. Yes, i am. In 2016, you had this theory that was the last stand of the angry white man. And its one othe reasons that you thought that trump would win. And you wrote, from the perspective of an angry white man that. How much of a sense do you have that this is still at play . I think its very much play. I think especially guys guys i grew up with areike, geez. You know, weve held this power for 200plus years. How is it that, on our watch, that this could happen . F and i think ghtens people, and they shouldnt be frightened. You know, its its the country will be a better place with more women in charge, with more women running things. Its just its ro lookd the world in those countries where women have more power, both political power, corporate power, all kinds of power things are just a little bit better. Theyre a littleinder. There was a feud that erupted this last weekbe betweeie supporters and warren supporters around this question of whether a womae coullected in 2020. Right. And there is some hosagreement between the candidates aboutaid what. So what did you think about this feud between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders this week . It was very sad and, again, i know her, and ive had her in my films, and i ve always loved her. And so im just the focus has to be about trump. It has to be abouthe system at gave us trump, to make sure that it doesnt happen again. T and the fat we would be talking about this and ive known bernie since e 80s. So theres no way he said anything like the way its been reported. I mean, to be honest, the night that that happened, my first thought was, they will mark this day, january 13th, as the day donald trump was reelecd. Because once again, the democrats, the liberals, c the leldnt get it together, couldnt figure out instead of so happy to get right in there and fight each other like this. And im like, when are we ever going to learn . This is on us. This is not on the russians. Its not on the republicans. Its on the Democratic Party for not getting its act together and not using its head. You know Elizabeth Warren shes been in your films. I mean, you all have sung from the same song sheetwe for years, a. Why do you support bernie over her . Because bernie has been the same consistent fighter for equal rights, against war, civil rights since the 1960s. And has she not been consistent . No. Well, no, shes been a republican. I mean, shes talked about this. So, she was republican to 1996. So thats the hit against her . Thats why you dont support her now . B no, no, n you said that she hasnt no, she hasnt been consistent since the time she was young. She was a young conservative republican, which i dont hold that against her. Hillary ranpu the ican. Goldwater girl. Yeah, she was a goldwater girl. So, no, you ha to be you know, i can i ill tell you the truth i actually, as a freshman in high school, went doortodoor for nixon beuse he was gonna end the vietnam war. I was so antiwar, there was no way humphrey, heould be elected. And so, i didnt like nixon,t, but i thouwell, he has said publicly he has a plan to end the war within six months. Good enough for me. But why bernie, not warren . Y know what i think they should do . I think they should they should go back into a room and talk again cause they are friends. And they suld agree, whoever wins the most delegates by the end of the primaries is going to be the candidate, and the other one gis their delegates to that person, and then one is the president ial thedidate who ha most delegates and the oth is the Vice President ial candidate. Let me ask about the Electoral College. Yeah. Ive heard you say youre for eliminating it. Absolutely, yes. H sp me understand then, if we got rid of the electoral collew would we be paying any attention to michigan, pennsylvan, or wisconsin right now . What youre saying is that if we didnt have the Electoral College, we would just be americans are so selfish, theyre only going to consider whats good for new york and l. A. And seattle. Im gonna go campaignate, in the Population Centers in order to get the most votes. Right now, they dt go ever campaign in california or new york, and they never get a visit. That is just wrong. Its just ts just not well, thats not true. Every single candidate comes through new york city every ek and twice on sunday. Well, because its the media capital. And its the money capal, so they come here to get money. And they go to Silicon Valley for money, and they l. A. They dont go to schenectady. They dont go to schenectady. Thats tr and they dont go to i guess the point im making, though, is, doesnt the Electoral College, because it forces us to reckon with lessrepresented parts of the country. That was not the reason it was set up. But its one of the effects now, i agree. Ve states, so they could count their slaves as 3 5 of a human so they could get larger congressional representation. We have a storied past. You know this. But the effect of it now is that its causing us to focus voters that might otherwise easily be forgotten. Yeah. Well, i canay, from my end of the political spectrum, we dont forget people. Were actuallybout remembering the people that are forgotten and fighting for theml well,ry didnt even go to wisconsin. Well, i dont consider her when i say my side of the fence. I dont i mean she was the democratic nominee i wro in my book once. And you voted for her. That bill clinton was the best repubcan president we had since abraham lincoln. That still doesnt answer my question about the Electoral College. Which is whats the shestion . The question is,ld i get rid of it . Yes. I would get rid of it. But if you got rid of it, i an, dont it serve a purpose now in forcing us tore on with voters who are forgotten and left behind . Who are theseorgotten voters . The white workingclass vote that you predicted would vote for trump. Okay. That hillary and the Democratic Party forgot about. Okay. But people and i know you dont claim that part of the Democratic Party, but there is systemically isnt the Electoral College serving a purpose . Listen, i watch the show, so i know you know that the real forgotten people in this country, the people that dot still have the powe that dont have the voice women, people of color, young peop. These are the forgotten people. These are the peop who are struggling. On 7. 25 an hour . You kn . Enever they say workingclass, you always think of tt white, workingclass lunchbucket guy, but the average workingclass person now is female. The average person. But its regionaland it depends on what part of the country youre in. And africanamerican and tino. These are the forgotten people. And, you know, what if some white people its not just forgotten people. I mean, south rolina people go to south carolina, where the africanamerican population gets a say early in the electoral process. Right . Were gonna agree to disagree on the Electoral College. Yeah, yeah. I want to turn toourma filmng. Id like to ask you about your documentary work, which includes 11 featurelength documentary films. All in color. One for which you won anem acaward bowling for columbine. Yes. And id like to reayou a quote abt something you id after your breakout 1989 roger me. Okay. You said, no documentary is in linear, chrological order. If you are looking for that, watch cspan. Right. What liberties do you take when youre making a documentary d telling a story . What is the difference between king a documentary and tellg a story and, say, writing a column for a newspaper . Thats a good point becae i always have tried to explain that my documentaries are like an oped. But you cannot write an oped for the new yorkimes and have things in there that are wrong. You cant have facts in your oped that are not correct. They will factcheck that. So i make these oped films where im presenting the facts as they are, but then my opinion the facts are right. My opinion may not be right. I think its right cause itsmy pinion, but i may not be right. You have to admit there are people who have disputed many of the the facts in your documentaries. Well, people dont like the facts, and so then they dispute them. The fact that the cia trained Osama Bin Laden, for example. Ec that was factd. Yeah, the cia no, the cia funded the mujahideen, but they didnttr n Osama Bin Laden. Big difference. Well, he was one of the leaders of it. T and you cat around that by saying, we gave money to the mujahideen, which hes a part of and one of the leaders of, and say, oh, no, we had nothing do with Osama Bin Laden well, i dont know. The factcheckers came back and said that was a stretch. Hes an unintended consequence ofheact that thats closer. Thats closer to fact. Before you assassinate the top general of a country, about the unintended think consequences of that. Before you invade iraq, whh had nothing to do with 9 11, you know, you should stopth and think abou. And the consequences of that. And so, natully, when i put out a film like fahrenheit 9 11, i mean, theyre gonna come at me with everything theyve got. But the fact of the matters, is thapeople dont want to hearhat we had something to with helping to fund the very thing that eventually gave us9 . So, i think, getting back to how you choose to tell stories, id like to show you a clip from an original firing line that aired in 1995 with william f. Buckley jr. And another Academy Award winner, Charlton Heston, who also appears in bowling for columbine. Lets take a look. Okay. Ll right. As lenin lenin presciently observed in goodness i think it was liken 1919 veryago. He said, the mong picture is the most powerful tool ever invented to shape the mind of man. Very smart fella. From which you well, not all that smart. [ both laugh ] from which you conude what . From which i conclude thatt can be dangerous. People believe somow what they see in the moving image, w in a curio, often more than what religious clerics and even politicians tell them. If thesee it in a movie, it somehow is true. Is the moving image the most powerful tool invented to shape mans ideas . I dont know about that, but i think if youve seen Police Academy 3, you know the dangerous impact a movie like that can have on our young people when they watch things whatever. Or transformers or well, i mean, im being facetious, but, yes. Of course movies are powful. Look, editing is part of how you create a documentary, ght . Because thats your opportunity to opine, right . And to shape the message. Yes. So how you think about that editing process as documentary filmmaker . In the same way youre thinking about it. You are going to edit this conversation in order to make sense, to tod story, the this or that or whatever. Asrtists, we all have the opportunity to present the story in the way that we want to present it. And so when i present o a fimine, like, lets say, bowling for columbine. So i have these strong feelings about gunsnd how we should be dealing with it. And you look into why america has such a violent culture and why were more vlent than canada and all this yeah. And even countrielike canada, who have guns they have hunting tons of hunting guns in canada, and they dont shoot each other. And i wanted to explore, why is that . Because the canadians arenter behan us. Theyve got the same 23 chromosomes in each of their selves that we have. So why us . Why do we do this . All rig so, can i give you an example of the editing and ask you, sir, how you made the choices . H, yeah, sure. So lets watch a clip from bowling for columbine, which takeplace in littleton, colorado, which is where i went to high school. To colorado 10 daysthe nra came after the massacre. And lets watch how nra president Charlton Heston, who we just saw on d. Firing line, is portra so he shot the girl, and he shot her in the head in front of me. And he shot the black kid because he was a black. I have only five words for you from my col dead hands. [ cheers and applause ] just 10 days aftethe columbine killings, despite the pleas of a community in mourning, Charlton Heston came to denver and held a large progun rally for the National Rifle association. G d morning. Thank you all for coming, and thank you for all right. So the question there is, how did you make that choice in editing . Us bethe clip of Charlton Heston hands, actually came from an nra rally a year later, in north carolina. So how do you yeah, we begin now wereth gonna begiCharlton Heston section of the movie. So, we have a generic that we know that know cause theyve seen that from my cold, dead hands everywhere. So were gonna set up ct that were now gonna go to Charlton Heston. Theres your iconic video clip of heston. And then i show the billboardr, in denver, and now i show him there 10 days later. Do you worry that it leaves people with the impressionhat he said, from my cold, dead hands 10 days later . He always said that. It was in every it just wasnt in the clip package that we could get. Except for that he didnt say it 10 days later in colorado, and it leaves you with the impression that he did. Well, i dont think so. In i it because that part of him at the convention is after that. That part, that its hard to explain this if you dont so you dont think that iteo leavese with the impression that he said that in colorado 10 days after the columbine shooting . It leaves people with the impression that h charltton believed very strongly in the Second Amendment and so strongly that that he would always say this from my cold, dead hands. He i guessuestion that i have for you is, you know, what about people who arentit familiarCharlton Heston . What about people who didnt know he always said that and they were left with the impression thatd be like somedy who didnt know who santa claus was. Thats not true. You know, itd be like, all of a sudden, if i showed some footage of santa going, ho ho ho and hs on the sleigh, and then you say, well, you know, you went from there, him on the sleigh, but en, the next sleigh he was on was in idaho. Eo and, you know,e arnna be confused cause theyre gonna think, on that other sleigh, when he was actually in oregon. I really disagree. T a haire trying to sp on this. I disagree, because heres why. So many people watch that film, li won an Academy Award, and they were faizing themselves with the issues and the details of columbine. They manot have known that said that. Frankly, i grew up in a republican family, was a member of the nra wn i was 12 and id never seen him say that. You never heard charltoneston say, from my cold, dead hands . That was his slogan. I hadnt. What would be wrong in that is if i showed him holdinup that gu and then dubbed in from you know, so you didnt see his lips moving, love this gun so much, i sleep with it every night. You know, obviously, th