“Michael Moore”
49:40 Share

Intro. I. Introductory. N. Nice. T. Tolerable. R. Remifications. O. Oh, I see. Uh-oh. This was the Smart Lesson Tour!

Welcome to Smartless. Smart. Less. Smart. Less. Smart. Less. Will, when did you start chasing acting? Great question. Settle in. A couple weeks ago, I think. No, I got a long answer. I'm going to give you the long answer. Any kid stuff? Excuse me? No.

Why is that an excuse me? Any kid stuff? I auditioned for a couple things when I was like 16. I did a couple commercials. Okay. A tight answer would be great. Yeah, just a tight answer. We've got a guest to get to. Okay, yeah, sorry. My answer is sure. You're not the guest. Have you seen the show? Have you seen the show? I should be. I think it's on Netflix. It's the new version of how they made these movies.

And they just did Aliens. They did like Home Alone. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I think I've heard of this. But I don't have the time to watch stuff like this. You have a lot of expendable time. I really enjoy that because I'm a big fan of these movies. And they get the cast. They got Sigourney Weaver to chat. It's really cool about how they made those movies.

You know, my feeling on that is there's a lot of behind the scenes and how they made it. It's all like how they made the sausage. Hey, guess what? Just enjoy the sausage. No, I enjoy how they make the sausage. If I had a dollar. I know. Well, listen, without further ado, let's do. Wait, are we in store for one of Jason's classic profiles? No, it's not. Here we go. It's not.

We wrote this in between shows. It's not that great. It's not that great.

because the other ones have been, right? I'm talking about my intro guests, not you. You're going to be incredible. I will give you a quick hint though. You know, talking about how you're not wearing a hat today, Sean. I love seeing your head. I think you've got a great head. Don't say he wears a lot of hats. He does. And I wish that he wouldn't. He's got a beautiful head on him. You'll see right now. Here we go. Okay. So today we have a fellow that has found himself intentionally or not as a health analyst and part-time fixer for...

all that ails us here in our beloved country. - Oh, I love it, I love it already. - Some may call him a savior, others may say the opposite, but no matter which side you stand on national policies, you cannot deny that this guy puts the time in on saying what he believes and the consistency of acting on it.

leaving us all with a mountain of information that we might not otherwise have the time to research or even initially be interested in knowing. So thank you right up front, sir. He's a one-time Eagle Scout and has since gone on to win an Oscar, a Palme d'Or, and been named one of Time's 100 Most Influential and has now made it to Smart.

Congratulations. Mr. Michael Moore. I knew it was Michael Moore. There he is. Michael Moore. Look at that beautiful hair. You can have the hat there, Sean. I mean, come on. Oh, he does have a hat on. You're wearing a Warriors hat, Michael? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He loves them. Draymond Green, Michigan State. You followed him all the way there. Michael, I was just in Michigan yesterday.

Well, you were. Great story, Sean. Yeah, thanks. What were you doing there? A friend of mine lives in Lakeside, Michigan. Who was it? Jason, do you know which friend of Sean's lives in Lakeside? I was. Dimitri is her name. Reina. It's Reina. That's it. I knew I was close. Well, you know, I'm a big fan of this podcast and I listen to it. No. Yes. I never heard it. I'm your third Michigander.

on Smartless as your guest. Jeff Daniels. Jeff Daniels, right. And Ken Burns from Ann Arbor. Oh, yeah. Wow, is that where he started? Yes. No way. So there's a Michigan thing going on here with Smartless, it seems. Well, listen, we're fond of Michigan. Yeah.

I've got a long history with Michigan. I grew up in Ontario. I'm Michigan adjacent. I said the Canadian, yes. I'm Michigan adjacent. You know, we used to go, the big foreign vacation for us was to go to a Leafs game, Maple Leafs game. Oh, yeah. In the old garden. Oh, yeah.

and there was a really cheap hotel right next to the old garden. And we'd all like, we'd get a room, a bunch of guys, and we'd just plow in there for the night and watch. The Carlton, was it the Carlton? The Carlton, that's right. Because it's on Carlton Street. It's on Carlton Street, yeah. Okay, so anyway, so yes. So my grandfather was a Canadian and he...

During the Vietnam War, I was in high school and myself and my buddies, we were not going to go and kill Vietnamese. What did they do to us? And so that was kind of our thinking. And so we did these dry runs because we thought, oh, we're going to get drafted. We're going to have to go to Vietnam. Okay, we're going to have to go to Canada. That's our plan.

So we do these dry runs across the Blue Water Bridge between Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Ontario, just to see what kind of questions will the Canadians ask us if we decide to flee or, you know, what's the Canadian strip search like? Which I just said, it's going to be cold, whatever it is. It's apologetic. They have permanently cold hands and they're going to apologize the whole time that they are doing what they do. So one time we had this idea of,

What if our escape was a boat, and we take a boat across the St. Clair River from Michigan over to Ontario? So one of our guys here had a boat. His dad had a boat. Loaded up the boat on the trailer, and we drove over to the river. And you can see Canada. It's just a quarter mile, half mile across the river. And we go to get the boat off the trailer. There's no motor on the boat. The dude forgot to bring the motor. Yeah.

Now what are we going to do? I said, well, I see you've got oars in here. Yeah, it's just a brody fishing boat. We'll paddle across it. We paddle across Canada to see if the Canadians would catch us, which of course we knew. Looking for a soft spot. Yeah, well, all of Canada is a soft spot. The whole world.

Soft order. I'm just saying, you know. You know, you described Jason on this podcast a little bit. He always shows up with no motor and we're constantly paddling. That is really a lot of work. Jason Bateman. Let me just say, Jason Bateman. And I think it was you, Jay, but maybe it was you, Will. But somewhere around 2004, right after Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9-11, I get a call from your producer, Jason.

asking me to be on Arrested Development. Oh, wow. Like, as a character, but as myself. Right. But they've written me into... Do you guys remember this? I feel like I remember this story. I feel like I remember this. Yeah, Mitch Hurwitz. Mitch Hurwitz wanted you on. Was that who? He's the brain behind it. He's the creator of the show. Oh, he's the guy. Yeah, yeah. Why do I think it's Jim Burroughs? Jim Vallely was his lieutenant. Oh, okay. So anyways, so they asked me to come, and I...

I couldn't do it because I love the show so much. It's so smart. And I thought, I'm just going to fail so bad. So I said, I just can't do it. And my agent there, Ari, you know Ari? Yeah. And he's like, no, you got to do this. And I said, no, it's the smartest show on TV. I know.

And it's the smartest one with humans. So The Simpsons would be the other one. I wish you'd done it. I didn't do it. So what Mitch did, he hired an actor to play me. Right.

Right. Do you remember this now? I think so, yeah. They tried to find somebody that looked like me, but that's impossible. So, and then I regretted it. I regretted it, and I thought, you were just chicken shit about this, and you should have done it. So when you guys came back, when it came back here in the mid-teens. Netflix. Netflix. I wanted to call one of you and just say, I'll do it now. How about now? I'll do it now.

You know what? When we do it again... Yeah. And you will. Here it comes. We're making news right now, right? Spoiler alert. We're going to do the movie. Is that true? No. Come on. Really? Hey, Michael, you mentioned, of course, one of the first times I ever became aware of you in 2004 was the amazing documentary Bowling for Columbine. Isn't it amazing to think back on that now? And I'm sure you get asked this a lot. Bowling for Columbine, it was just an amazing movie and enlightened us all to...

you know, what happens when guns get in the wrong hands. And here we are, I don't know, I can't do the math because I'm too stupid. All these years later, and now it's a daily occurrence that there is a mass shooting. A daily occurrence.

and we're just so numb to it. And they define mass shooting as four or more people killed. It should be more than one. Mass shooting should be more than one. Yeah, but you know when Americans were like, it's like, you know this, Canadian football, you know, it's not, you have only three downs, we have four. We have to have more than you. You have to have more. Six points, not one point. Well, that's a good point. The rest of the world plays football, they get one point when they score a goal, we get six, just because we are American. Right.

America's, what was it, like 90% or something is for some kind of gun control, and we still haven't accomplished that. 90% is correct. What is the deal? I don't understand it. What is it going to take? Well, first of all, the NRA is not the force that they used to be. They are not the big scary lobby that Democrats would never want to cross them. Those days are gone for them. And I think some of these shootings, like in Sandy Hook in Connecticut, where 20 first-graders...

essentially had their heads blown off or their faces blown off. It's unbelievable. And there's so much about things like this. I mean, I have...

I've actually thought for some time and I've actually filmed a little bit of an idea I have where, because I remember this from the Vietnam War, and again, thank you Canada, because we watched the CBC in Detroit and Flint, and in the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting, the nightly news, which was on, I think, at nine o'clock at night, prime time, told the truth about Vietnam, told us Americans across the river what was really going on with this war.

And, and I, you know, remember thinking and talking to my Canadian cousins, why don't you kill the same number of Canadians, each of you that we do in the United States? Cause you're no better than us. You've got the same 23 chromosomes in your cells that we do. You watch the same violent movies and violent TV shows, everything, all the reasons they give for why we do it and the Canadians and others don't do it. And, and, and I was going to,

I was actually going to make this point in the movie because I did go to Canada and it's in Bowling for Columbine. We went to what's it called? Statistics Canada in Ottawa, which for Americans, I have to say that's the capital. And it turns out per capita, there are more guns,

in Canadian homes than in American homes, because hunting is the number one sport in Canada. -Right. -More so than hockey. So why don't the Canadians, they got all these guns, why don't they shoot each other? Right. Well, you made a great point, which is-- which is-- couple things. One thing is, in the movie, when you go to Canada and you go to people's houses and their doors aren't locked. Yeah, I remember that. I just go up to random doors and open them at night. And walk into people's houses at night and walk in, and people would go, "Oh, how's it going?" - "How are you doing?" - "I know!"

And you go, sorry, I just walked in like, no, that's okay. Come on in. Are you hungry? Yeah, what's going on? We put that scene, shooting that scene off, we put that off for two years to the very last thing to shoot just in case a Canadian would, because you can't do that in the United States. You just can't walk into somebody's house. Just in case they shoot you. Just in case they shoot me. At least we'd have most of the movie

Yeah, it was that smart. God, it's good producing, by the way. Really good producing. I'm always thinking of the film first. But I want to say, so again, and I know as a Canadian, and I've talked to other Canadians about it, it's a great moment of pride when we watch that scene because it shows a lot. I think Canadians take a lot of pride in that notion that like,

Yeah, we're not, our first instinct isn't to kill. And so it goes kind of back to a couple of things. Sean, what you said, you know, you said that movie is great because it's about, you know, what happens when guns get in the wrong hands. I don't think that that's right. I think that it's a, and I love this country and I've lived in this country for many years now and I really love it. And there are a lot of great things about it.

But it's about a shift in the culture. There needs to be a shift in the culture and the attitude and the approach and how we look at our fellow, at our neighbors and look at them as all of us, we're only as strong as our weakest link. And that notion doesn't exist in this country. Like you said, there are more guns per capita. Why aren't there more deaths? Because it's not the...

There is a cultural difference. And I think that what needs to happen in the next generation, and hopefully it will, there needs to be a cultural shift. And it's not, and by the way, we're not a political show. You've listened to it. We don't talk in this way. It's not political to say that somebody has earned the right as a human being to be treated with health care, have access to health care. That's just fucking humanity. But Will or Michael or Jason, what do you think about this argument, though, that it's all based in mental health issues

That's the problem, not the gun. It can't. Statistically, it can't stack up that way. It doesn't. I mean, yes, obviously we need mental health care in this country, and it needs to be free.

uh, like it is in most other advanced countries. What you said, Will, is correct. We have to, we have to change the cultural, uh, thing here. It's not a political thing. You're absolutely right. We have to change. I mean, I, I, I started going hunting when I was 11 years old. And at that time, 11 and 12 year olds, they're just, we just go out to the woods. The parents, we, you know, we just take the guns and go shoot pheasants. See you at dinner. Yeah. If

If we make it. But of course, we were all, it was a Catholic neighborhood, so everybody had like 11 kids. So, you know, I think my feeling was that growing up, all these families with 11 kids, they're just playing the odds here. You know, one or two are going to get shot out in the woods. We play baseball out in the street, et cetera. So, but my point is that the culture, I won the NRA Marksman Award.

When I was in Boy Scouts. Oh, and you joined the NRA to infiltrate it, right? Yes. And, and, and. I was going to run against Charlton Heston. That was my thought. Yeah. So I'm a lifetime member of the NRA. I love that. Until I was excommunicated. But, but, you know, there's, here's the, let me just tell you guys, Sean and Jason about, you know, where Will grew up.

They keep making their gun laws stronger and stronger. It's really hard to get a handgun in Canada, right? And in fact, sometime recently, they've added a new piece of the law, which is if you want a handgun, you have to get your wife, your girlfriend, your ex-wife, your ex-girlfriend, they have to sign a form.

That says you are mentally okay and not a domestic abuser. So you need sponsors. Yes, but the women decide if the men get the gun. That's awesome. So I started thinking, what's that look like if you're in a living room in Sudbury, Ontario, and the guy wants to get a gun, and he's got the government for him, and he's had to call together the wife, the ex-wife, the girlfriend, the ex-girlfriend, the mistress. Any women in his life have to sign this.

And he's got the paper, and he's like, okay, now listen. I can't get a gun unless all of you sign this saying it's okay for me to have a gun. And they're all like, fuck you. We're not signing this. And he's like, he gets really mad, right? He's like, I'm going to tell you something. If you don't sign this, I'm going to kill you as soon as I get a gun. Yeah. And we will be right back. And now back to the show.

So, Michael, is the – I would imagine that most of the hunters, et cetera, are – and in fact, the polls bear this out, that they're in favor of basic sort of gun control, gun review. They are. Absolutely. Whatever it's called. Yeah. So –

The majority of Republicans are in favor of some of these gun control laws. And the thing that is stopping us from having just sort of these basic sort of regulations over that, again, for lack of the appropriate term, is because of the gun lobby. And my question to you is, is the reason the gun lobby is so strong, so big, so important, is it because the actual industry of gun making and gun selling is so lucrative? Yes.

that they want to protect. Is there really that much money made selling guns in this country? It's just... Yes. In fact, and sadly, just down the road from the Sandy Hook Elementary School is the national headquarters of the Gun Manufacturers Association of America, literally in the same town there in Connecticut. And, no, they... Yes, of course it's about the money, but it's also something else that Will sort of alluded to. We Americans...

We are a frightened people way too much of the time. We live with fear and our fears are manipulated, especially we've seen it now where race... And what Facebook tapped into. They're monetizing. Oh, yeah. Those papers showed that they will make more money the more afraid...

People are. And that fear goes from everything from a teenager feeling that she's too fat to a teenage boy, I've got too many pimples to whatever. And people won't like me. And you start living your life with this fear. And scary movies make a lot of money too.

I mean, you know, not to trivialize it, but people, it is a very big emotion in this country. And it would be much better, actually, if people just got those emotions dealt with cathartically by watching horror movies. Eating popcorn, exactly. And eating popcorn. But unfortunately, I think that race has played a significant role in why

A lot of people think they need a gun in the home. And the worst thing you can have is a gun in the home because the statistics show that you have a much greater chance of someone in your home committing suicide with a gun than any other way. All the other ways of trying to kill yourself, overdose. There's a great bit that Jim Jeffries is a stand-up comic and he's Australian and he does this bit. I'm not going to do it justice at all, but he was imitating an American... Because they have great gun control laws in Australia as well. And he's like...

when Americans buy guns and keep them in a safe in their home. And he was imitating a guy breaking in and saying, just wait one second while I go grab my gun. And he imitates doing the combination, two to the right, one to the left. Hang on one sec, I'll be right there. And then, you know, I don't understand it.

Um, Michael, did you, did you start all of this effort with, with such an undying passion for, um, giving a voice to the unheard or putting a spotlight on the unseen? Um, or did that, was that something that just developed because you started actually as a filmmaker and you discovered that the subjects you were making films about triggered all of this passion about like, which was the chicken or the egg? Mm-hmm.

If you put it that way, the film would be first because I've always believed, even though I always cared about these things. And I mean, I asked when I was 14, I asked my parents if I could leave home. I was inspired by Cesar Chavez, the Berrigan brothers, these, you know, kind of liberal Catholics. And I wanted to go to the seminary to be a priest.

and I had to talk them into this. If you tell a Catholic parent you have a calling, like somebody has spoken to you, they can't get in the way of that. So I got to leave home in ninth grade to go to a seminary and decided to be a priest, and I...

because I cared about all these social issues. But they kicked me out after a year. And I went down and I said to the top, the head priest, I said, why are you kicking me out? I've obeyed the rules. And Father DeWicke was his name. He goes, because you ask too many questions. And he said, we are an institution of answers.

By the way, I mean, that sounds like anybody who's worried about holes being poked in their story. You know what I mean? It also sounds like he's a member of the lollipop guild. So anyways, but I love the movies. And I always, from a teenager on, as soon as I got a driver's license, I was driving to Ann Arbor in Detroit to see all the Kurosawa, Godard movies.

Francois Truffaut, everything. I went to see everything. And in 1983, I drove down there and I saw a documentary. Didn't know much about it. It was supposed to be about atomic weapons or nuclear power. And the whole film was... Maybe you've seen this film. It's called Atomic Cafe. It's all clips of all the scare stuff during the 50s. And it was funny, but it was about the end of the world. Right. And I thought...

wow, you could make a documentary and be funny. This is like, who's done this? And because I didn't like documentaries. But so I always went to a lot of movies and I always, and I, when I, if they let me talk to a film class now, I always say to them, you know, the number one rule of not Fight Club, but of documentaries is,

is don't make a documentary. Right. Make a movie. Right. You know? Yeah. I hate this word, documentarian. We don't call Scorsese a fictionitarian. Yeah. Kubrick's not a fictionitarian. We all make movies, and you can make it with fiction or you can make it with nonfiction.

More animation. And those filmmakers will usually be drawn to existing scripts that speak to something that they're previously passionate about or they will develop something that they're previously passionate about. Do you find yourself...

Waiting until a certain policy or subject or issue finds its way to you or are you constantly on the search for things that might benefit from you putting your light on it? That's a great question. And the way I deal with that is I the next film, I ask myself the question, what am I afraid to make?

What's the movie I should not make? I'm afraid to make it. It's just going to be more trouble. Sure. Is there something you could tell us now that fits that description that you're working on now? Well, if you promise not to tell anybody else. No, no, it's just us. It's just us. Right, just us, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're just a whisperer. I'm right here.

Listen to me. I'm trying to stretch for time here. I know. My brain is saying, don't. Do not tell these. Just give us the area. We can always cut it. We can always cut it. Call us later and say cut it. It's something about soccer, isn't it?

Something about soccer or table tennis. Something about ping pong. It should be about soccer. I could make a really funny film about that. We don't want to put you on the spot. You think about it. You think about it. You come back to us. Michael, do you think it's finally time for an independent to win in 2024? I think it's best if actually both people, people who run either as a Republican or a Democrat should be independent.

that it doesn't work anymore. We've got so many, we've got 330 million people. Two political parties cannot represent the broad spectrum of political thought for 330 million. So we, I wish we had more of a parliamentary system where they could form the coalitions, more people would be represented in Congress.

And people would vote. I think that 100 million that don't vote, they don't see themselves represented. Well, you know what's amazing, Michael, is how many times in the last year I've had to... I'm also a proponent of that. And I've had to explain to people how the parliamentary system works.

First of all, it's shocking how many people in this country don't know how that works, and they don't even know the concept of it. And when they hear it, they go, well, that sounds pretty good. Yeah, I don't know how it works. Well, it's... We can talk about it on the phone. You look it up. I'll tell you tonight. I'm going to do it tonight at dinner. But I love this idea, Michael. I love the way you say you approach it like you just want to... What am I afraid to make? That is such a powerful... Like, Sean, I know that you think, what am I... I know Sean's afraid to make a left onto Larchmont from third. Yeah.

So he'll go around, he'll take a right, and then he goes a right and a right. And then he goes, yeah, before he goes, he makes four right turns. It's a metaphor of how I live my life. But it is a great way to, if all of us could kind of look at, like, what is the thing that I'm afraid to do? What's the thing that makes me uncomfortable? Maybe part of the problem is we've all become too comfortable in this country. I say this as I lean back in my office chair. Mm-hmm.

You know? Spider-Man office chair. It is a Spider-Man. It's my son's gaming chair. Yeah. Well, I agree with that. And I think, too, that if we could learn to be just kinder to each other, especially the ones that we disagree with. 100%. Yeah, I think that would be a much better thing. Why is it, Michael? Why do you think in this country there is this notion that people don't care about

I don't know if I told this on the show before, but I once said to my dad, how come you, years ago, he was a lawyer and then he went into business with one of his clients and et cetera, et cetera. And I said, why did you never move to the States? You could have made way more money.

And he said, because I had an obligation to give back to the system that got me here. Wow. And he meant it. And he, by the way... That is a Canadian cultural thinking. Yeah. And he's not a hero. I mean, he's my... I love him. He's my dad. He's a really good, decent, and just person. But he...

That idea, when I heard that, and I was like 18 when he said that, and he meant it. And why does that not exist here? Isn't there a fundamental difference in how the citizenry considers government and what its role could and should be for the citizens? In Canada, it's much more of something to help you and your life. In America, it's more of sort of, I don't know, it's not that, or at least to one side. Well, this country was born out of a revolution, so think about it that way. There was always a discourse. Right.

And the Canadians didn't do it. They didn't revolt against the British. No, of course not. They waited about another probably 70, 80 years after our revolution because the Canadians knew the British would just get cold and want to go home. And that's exactly what happened. By 1860, there was a thing called Canada.

It's true. I actually, my family lived in New Jersey back then. And during the revolution went to Canada because they were loyalists to the crown. But apart from the relationship to government, what is it about the American cultural, what is it about that mentality that holds this country back from...

that kind of notion of being in this together or thinking of, or being kinder? Why, why does, what is that lapse? Why does that exist? Do you know? I'm asking for real. Well, it's part of the, was it part of the answers in the last bit, which is that we were founded in violence and,

And you weren't. And the Canadians weren't. And so you organized yourselves differently. And so to this day, when you have a plane load of refugees landing in Toronto, your prime minister is there to greet and shake the hand of every refugee coming from Syria or wherever,

And I wish we were that. You know, my Canadian grandfather, who was the Republican leader in my town in the U.S., I remember him and he would say that I'm a conservative. But a conservative means that you should conserve your money. Don't spend money you don't have. You should conserve the earth that God gave us.

That has to be part of what conservative means. And we're going to sit at the table and have dinner together as a family. I mean, just those basic conservative, what he called conservative values. And who would disagree with what I just said, regardless whether you're a Republican or a Democrat or whatever. If we could somehow, and again, it's sad because we are a nation that was born in genocide.

and built on the backs of slaves. And it's not that Canada is a perfect place and doesn't have their shameful history with Native people. But we somehow never wanted to really apologize or get over it or fix it in some way to where the bottom rung of the American ladder is still occupied by Native Americans and Black Americans.

And that hasn't changed. And until that changes, I, you know, all this thing about critical race theory they're talking about, it's like, I want, don't you want, we want our children, our grandchildren to be taught the truth about how we were formed, how we've behaved, so that we don't behave that way anymore, so we can be better. You have to question people who don't want to have those conversations why they don't. Right. Well, I think because

to be honest, a lot of people, a lot of white people are afraid that if we give up too much to our history, our truth of our history, we're going to have to give up some of what we have. And they know the demographics too. They know that white people will not be the majority race in the 2040s. That's just 20 years away. So they're scared.

They're scared and they think, just like the white people in South Africa were afraid of, if we let Nelson Mandela out of prison and if black people in South Africa have rights and they can vote, it's going to be off with our heads. And that did not happen, did it? And it's never really happened because most people who are victims of any kind of this sort of thing, they don't want to respond that way. They actually want to create the world that they wish they could have lived in all these years. Yeah. We'll be right back.

And now, back to the show. Michael, would you say the glass half full version of looking at our future perhaps, immediate future, is that the fear that we've been talking about, which is sort of prompting all of these bad behaviors, do you think the fear might dissipate once those folks start to feel the benefits of this situation

administration slash policies, legislation, all that stuff, will the fear start to subside a bit and some of that love and kindness that you were talking about as the medicine will more freely flow from those people that perhaps that's the path towards a lack of sort of maybe getting rid of this tribalism and all being comfortable enough to treat us as all one, as we're all in this together?

I think that's already in the process of happening. I think, well, I was out there campaigning, um, almost two years ago for Bernie on the road with him. Been a friend of his for since, well, his first election in Vermont in 1990. And I can't tell you how happy I am, um, that Biden is president. Yeah. Um, I have been stunned so many times and there's not a lot of coverage of a lot of the little things he's done. Uh,

A month or two ago, he got rid of all student debt for any disabled American. Well, you're a professional messenger. Can you not help them with figuring out a way to get the word out that it's working, that what he's doing... Like, the accomplishments so far...

are insanely good. No, but the problem is with somebody like Michael is he's spoken the truth so many times that what they've done is that they've muddied the waters enough so that when he does say, hey, look, they eliminated debt for all disabled people, they go, oh, just another Michael Moore. He's looking to cause trouble. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. He's right. Am I right about that?

only with 20% of the population, the people that are on the far right, the people that don't believe the coronavirus is real or the vaccine is, you know, I,

I don't know if we can help that far 20%, but, but I, I have a lot of success and I have, I have a lot of fans and people that go to my movies and read my books and listen to my podcast. Substack. Tell us about Substack. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, no, I have a Sunday letter that I send out for free to anybody who wants it. And, uh,

And I talk about these things and I talk about them in a way where I think that I'm not trying to poke people in the eye with it. I'm just trying to say, hey, if you have a disabled member in your family, aren't you happy that this president, a president that I didn't vote for in the primary, aren't you happy that that individual in your family, their student debt has been retired? Isn't that a great thing? It's a little thing, but he's done so many of these little things

Now when you look at the polls, you see that's why there is not a single thing in his infrastructure, the human infrastructure bill, that the majority of Americans disagree with. It's 60, 70, 80 percent in agreement. Michael, how did they do – what was the great trick that they played? Sorry to belabor this, but where they took people – let's say you go to Michigan. Some person who lives in Michigan –

who works, who's been a union member for a long time. It seems like a lot of these sort of working class people who have been part of unions, who have benefited from certain social benefits, have been radicalized by the right. That seems to be like a growing contingent of people who would benefit a lot from a lot of these things, like you're saying, like they might have a family member who would benefit from what Biden is doing. I'll tell you why. Because the Democrats have taken way too long

to make these things happen. If they had made more of it happen sooner, we wouldn't probably even be in this situation. You're right. They are horrible at their messaging. And I would volunteer the next two years of my life to help them with that if they wanted that help. But, you know, I tried to, you know, a couple years ago, my last movie,

I tried to convince Steve Bannon to be in the movie because I wanted him and I to have a sit-down talk. And he told me during this, I ended up not being in the film, but he said, you know, I was at your very first screening of your very first film in 1989, Roger and Me, in Telluride, Telluride Film Festival. And I sat just down the row from Roger Ebert and I could not believe this film

And I walked out on the street looking for a pay phone. There were no cell phones back then. I called one of our, you know, right-wing operatives in D.C. saying, oh, my God, the revolution will not be led by us. I've just seen this film. And this guy that we've never heard of, uh...

Oh, my God. He's a problem. He's a problem because our people are going to listen to him because he's coming from where they're at. Yeah. And he said to me then, this is just two years ago, he said, and my greatest thank you to the Democrats is that for these past 30 years,

They chose not to listen to you. The Democratic leadership, the people that run the party, they've kept you as far away as they can because you are the real threat to them. Not to us as much, but to them. And I was like, well, I was just like listening to this and my head was just spinning. And I'm like, you know, and I know this already because you won't see me speaking at the Democratic conventions.

No, you won't. And why is that? What was his point? Why are you a threat to the mainstream base of the Democratic Party? Is that what he's talking about? Yeah, yes. What would be a threat? Because you're seen as the extreme left, right? In their eyes. Yes, but now, not any longer, the majority of Americans believe women should be paid the same as men. Yeah. What I believed 30 or 40 years ago, the majority of Americans, I'm in the middle now, the majority of Americans believe the climate is real. Right. Right.

I don't have to convince people of these things anymore or that minimum wage should not be $7.25 an hour. The American public has come to my- Now we just need to get them to vote, right? Yes, that's my point. The 100 million, how do we get them to vote? My proposal is to the Democrats, get ballot proposals on the ballot that will bring out people who otherwise wouldn't vote.

There should be marijuana legalization on every ballot in the country. In Michigan, in the last election, we passed a ballot proposal making it a crime to

to gerrymander or to voter suppress. I thought you said crime to have seeds in your weed. That'll get them out. No seeds, no stems. That should be in there too. Because, yeah, fuck that. Stems and stuff. And you're like, dude, are you fucking... And now he's already left. Just sifted out. The marijuana crime I'm mostly concerned about is that when I was a teenager, it smelled so sweet. And now it smells like a skunk.

What the hell happened here? I don't know. But I'm just saying that if we get ballot proposals that will bring people out, you know, we don't have an equal rights amendment still in this country. If you had an equal rights amendment for your state on your state ballot saying women are to be treated equally, again, you're now appealing to the base of the Democratic Party. Women, young people, people of color. Who decides what's on the ballot? Would it be the governor of each state? No, no. You just go and get the signatures. How many signatures? Depends on the state. Sometimes it's...

it's 50,000. Oh, really? But you could, yeah, if you said, hey, I have an idea for a thing, you could write it up today and you could go out and if you get 250,000, that's how, how do you think they did the recall, they tried to do the recall in Gavin Newsom? It was all based on that. Exactly. So it doesn't matter what it is. If I want to make, if I want to make milk green from now on in California, if I get 100,000 votes, it can be on the ballot. Here he goes on the milk green. Dude, we're not doing it. I just think it'd be so much better.

But let me just say that I wanted to say this at the beginning. And the three of you who I've only met you, Sean, I believe, before. Will was in a Flint, the only movie ever set in Flint, a fiction film called Semi-Pro. Yeah, that's right. And the Flint Tropics are the basketball team in it.

And then my chickening out on being on Arrested Development. But I just want to say that the more of the three of you in this country, the better. Because we need, well, first of all, we all need a good laugh right now. We've gone, we're not out of the woods yet. But your ability to use satire and to, your comedy is so smart that,

It's just, I can't get enough of it. And, you know, I hope someday we can work together in some way because it's an honor to be on this podcast together.

You're a nice fellow. It's an honor for you to be on this show. Thank you so much. Honestly, I remember Roger and me was such a milestone in filmmaking. It really was. I remember just being... I couldn't believe it when I saw it. Fahrenheit...

9-11, just incredible. I remember the night I watched it. I remember going for dinner afterwards with my ex and a good friend of ours and talking about it. We were so moved. Bowling for Columbine. You know, all these things. You're...

Look, man, you're such a brave, brave soul. You really are. And I love the idea. And again, it goes with... I need to say it again. If you're listening to this podcast and you think that these are just a bunch of... You know, that we're being political, it's not political to talk about human rights. It's just not. And we're just talking about... What I love is you come up... Your approach of it is...

hey, call me, paint me with whatever fucking brush you want to paint me with, but let's just get this shit done. Let's get it done. Come on, we're better than this. Yeah, we're better than this. Come on, everybody. And I would just like to say thank you for basically saving a lot of us a lot of work. Whether you agree with you or not agree with you,

You are providing, as I said in the intro, all of us with a lot of information that we wouldn't otherwise either have the time to research ourselves or be interested in even knowing before we hear it. But you are presenting it to us in an incredibly well-done way, even when you're on talk shows, on news shows. I mean, I just love listening to you talk. So please, please keep it going. Keep it coming and know that it is important.

fully appreciated as well as entertaining. Ditto here for everything Jason just said. It's just a thank you for everything you've done. Thank you. And keep, keep, please don't stop doing it. I will not stop. And, and you don't stop either. No, no, the importance of humor, uh, in our time. Will. Uh, it's, it's, it's critical. And, um, we tell them, we try to tell them every time.

Listen, anybody that's been in the Lego movie, one of the great films of all time, one of the most pointed and fulfilling examination of us as a society in the Lego movie. I'm serious. You guys know I'm telling that. I agree. Those guys are sneaky smart.

Michael, you know, and, and, and, and, you know, I don't need to go through the whole damn list, but, you know, Ozark, enough said. I mean, just, it's just. Don't even put it on the list. Don't even put it on. If you don't want to go through the list, just leave it off the list.

And you know, we, the public, don't want you to stop doing any of this. We want you to do this work, even long after you've like, I've done this for five years, I'm out. But the importance of this and of people being able to have that laugh and to have that, I think, you know, if anybody, if you haven't seen the film Sullivan's Travels from the 30s, early 40s,

about a Hollywood director wanted to make a socially conscious film and get people to think about things. And at the end of the film, he learns the best thing I can do is just to make a great movie and give people a chance to laugh. They've worked hard all week. Life is one curveball after another being thrown at our heads. If what you give people are two solid hours of a great movie

And one where they can laugh. And one that treats them as if they're smart, not stupid. That's what all of you do that. I remember my parents in their 80s were like Seinfeld was their favorite show. And I'm like, do you guys get any of this Upper West Side humor? And no, we just think it's funny. And I thought, wow, that was the genius of Seinfeld that he could take a cultural thing

living on the Upper West Side. And people in Flint, Michigan loved it. And that's the key. It's what I, again, to the people who want to make a documentary, make a movie, not a documentary. Make something that people are going to be just, it's going to move them. They're going to have a great laugh. They're going to learn something. They're going to get angry, whatever it is. Don't go for the mediocre.

There's a great Kurt Vonnegut line in his only play that he wrote, Happy Birthday, Wanda June. And he says, one of the characters says, you know, in America, they love the mediocre. Boy, I just hated hearing that at the time. That's why we're here. Yes. And so we, all of us, must not do mediocre work. And we must give people a chance, while they're coming up out of their seats, feel like they're

feeling like, "Yes! Yes!" Dude, Michael, that is so inspiring. It's almost like I wanted-- Like, Jason, can you make a pledge today that you won't make any more mediocre work? Do you think you can actually make that pledge today? -That's not fair. -No, I'm asking you. No, we should have a petition. We should just have something to sign. I'm dancing as fast as I can. When I opened my movie theater-- I restored an old movie theater where I live in Northern Michigan. And one of the first movies we played was Juno.

That, again, is an example of a genius film and your role in that.

was beautiful. It was great. He's a lonely guy, yeah. It was great. He was. You were. You were fantastic. He was great. I forgot about that. You were great. I never forget about that. He was always great. These guys, I'm lucky to be with these guys. And the heart that he had with this teenager who was pregnant and trying to be a good adult for her was, it was very moving, but of course, but the film is also funny and

genius and everything else. I'm just, this is the first thing that popped in my head though, but Jason, your long list of this is much appreciated by those of us who do need that respite, that chance. Well, you're describing beautifully the stuff that you do, making the medicine go down easy by creating some real legitimate entertainment around some education. So

Please, please keep that going. And your stuff is funny as hell as well. I mean, you know, getting the audience to a happy place is always the greatest first step towards change. So I think what you're saying there about, you know, channeling the comedy and, you know, Adam McKay is doing a great job with that too with all the stuff that he's making. And so...

Thank you. Note taken and right back at you. -And please keep it coming. -So jarringly funny how-- Like Roger and me were so jarringly funny at the time. I didn't know anything about you before Roger and me. It was so jarringly funny and--

Yeah, anyway, yeah. Oh, thank you for that. Thank you, man. Thanks, Michael. Thanks for hanging out with us on a Saturday. Yeah, we appreciate it. It's been great and an honor, and we all have a lot to do. And for the people listening to this, do not give up. That's exactly what they want you to do. We're on the upswing. Do not give up, absolutely. However, unless you think there's no way it's going to happen, then do give up.

I just want to give them the out. You basically get your boat in the river up there and start moving your horse towards Canada. If you actually believe that there's no way it's going to get better, get in that boat and go to Canada. Yeah. With no engine. Thank you, Michael, very, very much. Thank you, Michael Moore. Thanks, guys. Thanks so much. Be well. Bye, pal. You too, pal. See you later. That man. That was super exciting to see his face pop up there. Yeah. It was. He's a great filmmaker and a great voice, and I do love, again...

I love what a voice he is to try to be a voice of reason in the way that he tries to break issues down that are complicated, that are hot-button issues. Gun control, for whatever reason, is a hot-button issue. By the way, it should be fairly cut and dry, and for whatever reason, it's like... Yeah, it's like, for me, I consider it as issues for dummies. Well, just singular, not even plural, just issue for dummy. Dummy. Dummy.

Sorry, go ahead. He's presenting and he's rapping it in a very relatable Yes, I love it. surround. He's just He knows what he's doing. But the rap has a sexy indifference too so it's like a sexy indifferent rap. I'm like telling you stuff but I'm not telling you stuff. Yeah, it's kind of a

It is a nice, again, whether you agree or not with his stuff, I think it's undeniable that what he's doing is somewhat philanthropic because I'm sure he's not getting super rich off all this stuff. But you know what's great about that is he doesn't pick a side, and we've used this before, but he doesn't pick a side. He's pretty much me, Bernie!

What do you think? Here's what's astounding about your podcast. We've used bipartisan before, by the way. That's what I said. I said we used it before. Pretty lame dismount. Pretty lame dismount. We'll make it up to you on the next podcast episode, listener. Oh, well, thank God you just saved it. You just saved it, you fucking dick. Please stand by. Yeah, Rob with one. Please stand by. Please stand by.

SmartLess. SmartLess. SmartLess is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Bennett Barbico, Michael Grant Terry, and Rob Armjarff. SmartLess.

If you like SmartList, you can listen early and add free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.