Moore rips into Blitzer
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0707/09/sitroom.03.html
BLITZER: Earlier I spoke to Michael Moore about criticism of his new
film.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: Michael Moore is joining us now live from Detroit. Michael,
thanks very much for coming in. You want to respond to anything …
MOORE: First of all, Wolf, yeah, well — yeah, I’d like about 10
minutes to respond to what was said.
BLITZER: Give us a couple of headlines, what you’d like to say.
MOORE: I don’t talk in sound bites. So — that report was so biased.
I can’t imagine what pharmaceutical company ad’s coming up right
after our break here.
But why don’t you tell the truth to the American people? I mean, I
wish that CNN and the other mainstream media would just for once tell
the truth about what’s going on in this country, whether it’s with
healthcare — I don’t care what it is. I mean, you guys have such a
poor track record.
And for me to come on here and have to listen to that kind of crap. I
mean, seriously, I haven’t been on your show now for three years. The
last time I was on, you ran a similar piece about “Fahrenheit 9/11″
saying this can’t be true what he’s saying about the war, how it’s
going to be a quagmire, the weapons of mass destruction.
You know, and — why don’t you start off actually with my first
appearance back here on your show in three years and maybe apologize
to me for saying that three years ago, because it turned out
everything I said in “Fahrenheit” was true. Everything has come to
happen.
Everything I said. I mean, I was — I took you in that film to Walter
Reed Hospital and it took three years before you or any of the rest
of the mainstream media would go to Walter Reed Hospital and see what
was happening to our troops. So for me to have to sit here and listen
again to more crap about socialized medicine or how the Canadians
have it worse than us and all this, all the statistics show that we
have far worse healthcare than these other industrialized countries.
We’re the only ones that don’t have it free and universal. And, you
know, there’s a — there’s a — you said that Germany was the only
one that was better than us in terms of wait times. The Commonwealth
Fund last year showed of the top six countries, we were second to
last, next to Canada. It showed that Britain, for instance, 71
percent of the British public, when they call to see a doctor, get to
see the doctor that day or the next day. It’s 69 percent in Germany.
It’s 66% in Australia. And you’re the ones who are fudging the facts.
You fudged the facts to the American people now for I don’t know how
long about this issue, about the war.
And I’m just curious when are you going to just stand there and
apologize to the American people for not bringing the truth to them
that isn’t sponsored by some major corporation? I mean, I’ll sit here
for as long as it takes, if you can do that for me.
BLITZER: Just in fairness, we had a lot of commercials for “Sicko”
that we’ve been running on CNN as well. So we have commercials. This
is a business, obviously. But let’s talk a little bit about …
MOORE: You have a nightly medical report. You have something called
“The Daily Dose.” I watch CNN. You have it every day. “The Daily
Dose” sponsored by — fill in the blank. And you are funded by these
people day in and day out. Don’t even compare that to my movie being
out for a couple of weeks and a couple of rinky-dink ads for 15
seconds. Come on. Come on, Wolf!
BLITZER: No, no — I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dr. Sanjay
Gupta’s record, but I would stack up his record on medical issues
with virtually anyone in the business.
MOORE: All right. So when I — when I now put on my Web site, as I
will do tonight, how his facts were wrong about the $7,000 that we
spend, it’s actually — I’ve read one report now, it’s even more than
$7,000 that we spend per person each year in this country. I’m going
to put the real facts up there on my Web site so people can see what
he said was wrong.
BLITZER: Well, if we get that confirmed, obviously, we’ll correct the
record. Sanjay - but I’m just saying … MOORE: Oh, you will? You’ll
be getting it.
BLITZER: Sanjay Gupta is not only a doctor and neurosurgeon, but he’s
also an excellent, excellent journalist. Look, I saw the film, and
it’s a powerful, powerful …
MOORE: I saw Dr. Sanjay Gupta over there embedded with the troops at
the beginning of the war. He and the others of you in the mainstream
media refused to ask our leaders the hard questions and demand the
honest answers. And that’s why we’re in this war — we’re in the
fifth year of this war because you and CNN, Dr. Gupta, you didn’t do
your jobs back then and now here we are in this mess.
What if you’d actually done the job on that? That’s why anybody who
hears anything he anything of what you say now about universal
healthcare should question what you’re saying, what you’re putting
out there. You didn’t do the job for us with the war. You’re not
doing it with this issue. And I just — I just wonder when the
American people are going to turn off their TV sets and quit
listening to this stuff.
BLITZER: Sanjay Gupta did an excellent job covering that war. He was
with the Navy’s medical doctors and he went in and risked his life
and actually performed neurosurgery on the scene.
MOORE: You have the questions. Why are we here? That’s the question.
Why are we here in this war? Where’s the weapons of mass destruction?
Why didn’t you — why did it take you so long, Wolf, to finally take
on Vice President Cheney? It took you to 2007 before you made the man
mad at you.
BLITZER: Those are fair questions.
MOORE: Four years!
BLITZER: Let’s talk a little …
MOORE: Where were you?
BLITZER: Let’s talk about “Sicko.” That’s the film that you’re here
to talk about.
MOORE: Yeah, let’s forget that. Yeah, OK.
BLITZER: There’s plenty to talk about the war. There’s plenty to talk
about with “Sicko.”
MOORE: I just haven’t seen you in three years, so I was wondering how
you felt for three years of not seeing me after you trashed
“Fahrenheit” and said that I was wrong about, oh, yeah, this war was
– come on, I’m just waiting for an apology.
BLITZER: Michael, we’ve invited you on numerous occasions.
Unfortunately, you’ve declined our invitations the past three years
but there are plenty of times we asked you to come on the show and
plenty of times you’ve declined.
MOORE: Really? And you wanted to apologize? Why did you want to talk
to me?
BLITZER: No, we wanted to interview you. That’s what we do on
television. Let’s …
MOORE: You don’t have to apologize to me. Maybe just apologize to the
American people and the families of the troops for not doing your job
four years ago. We wouldn’t be in this war. If you had done your job.
Come on. Just admit it. Just apologize to the American people.
BLITZER: Which of the presidential candidates who are out there right
now do you think would do the best job fixing the nation’s healthcare
system?
MOORE: Well, the Democrats have to be asked some very specific
questions. Too many of them are saying, well, they’re for health care
for all people. Very few of them are being as specific as Mr.
Kucinich is in saying, well, I support the Conyers bill in Congress
HR-676. That’s what we need to hear.
And I would like to hear what these other Democratic candidates are
going to say and do in specifics in removing the private insurance
companies from the equation. We shouldn’t have profit involved when
we talk about taking care of people’s health.
BLITZER: Is there a candidate, though, you think — is Dennis
Kucinich your candidate? Who do you think — I know in the film you
go after Hillary Clinton. And you’re very, very bipartisan in your
criticism in the film, Democrats and Republicans.
MOORE: Yeah. When you say I go after, let’s be clear. I actually
think she did a very brave thing to try and address this issue 14
years ago. And they stopped her cold. They went after her with the
same kind of, you know, trash pieces I just had to watch. And so that
stopped her. And now we’ve had to suffer through 14 more years of
having no universal healthcare in this country. Our own government
admits that because the 47 million who aren’t insured, we now have
about 18,000 people a year that die in this country simply because
they don’t have health insurance. That’s six 9/11’s every single year.
If you times that by 14 since Mrs. Clinton was unceremoniously
removed from the agenda here, she hasn’t been able to talk about
this. She hasn’t really put forth her specific plan. I’m hoping that
the people have gone to my movie, the people that are concerned about
this issue, will write to Mrs. Clinton and say, please, universal
healthcare that’s free for everyone who lives in this country. It
will cost us less than what we’re spending now ling the pockets of
these private health insurance companies, of these pharmaceutical
companies. So there’s still some chance to have an effect on people
like her.
And of course, there’s one candidate who isn’t even in the race yet.
I don’t know if he will be. But he was right about the war before it
began, unlike CNN — did I mention that?
BLITZER: You did.
MOORE: And — and he’s right about global warming and he’s right on
this issue, too.
BLITZER: Al Gore. The Democrats, by and large, most of them support
some major health reform, including universal healthcare, which is
what you support. I want you to listen to what Rudy Giuliani, the
Republican front-runner said at the Republican debate that I hosted
up in Manchester, New Hampshire. Listen to this.
MOORE: OK.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUDY GIULIANI, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Free market principles are
the only things that reduce cost and improve quality. Socialized
medicine will ruin medicine in the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: All right. What do you say to Mayor Giuliani?
MOORE: So he’s saying that he hates Medicare?
BLITZER: He’s saying socialized medicine will ruin medicine in the
United States.
MOORE: That’s what we have. Ask a doctor if they’d rather have a
Medicare patient or somebody who has got a lousy HMO, because they
know at least Medicare — the government will pay them, send them a
check and not have to fight an hour on the phone just to get a $15
office visit paid for.
I mean, seriously, we have one of the largest socialized medicine
systems in this country. It’s called Medicare and Medicaid. And while
it’s underfunded and too much of the control of it has been handed
over to private companies, we’ve already proven we can do things like
that, and Social Security and other things very well. So I hope that
he wasn’t attacking help for senior citizens, because that’s what it
sounded like to me.
BLITZER: I’ve got a whole bunch of questions. Unfortunately, we’re
out of time. But if you stick around …
MOORE: We’re out of time! I’ll see you in three years.
BLITZER: No, no, stick around. We’ll tape some more. We’ll run it
tomorrow. We want to make sure you get your chance to …
MOORE: Oh, no, see, that’s the deal, Wolf. There’s no taping with me.
As you know, it’s rare that they put me on live. And to your credit,
thank you for doing that. You can see why. They generally don’t like
to have me on live because, you know, a lot of that would have been
cut out.
BLITZER: Well, no …
MOORE: Thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it.
BLITZER: We’re not going to cut a second of it out if you want to
tape something.
MOORE: Run it unedited?
BLITZER: Run it unedited.
MOORE: And people can …
BLITZER: And people going to your Web site, it’s a free country, they
can find out the truth, about what it is.
MOORE: The facts about Sanjay Gupta, they can find out about his
facts, right? We can find that out, right? BLITZER: Absolutely.
Michael Moore.
MOORE: OK.
BLITZER: Thanks very much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: Sanjay was in surgery today. He missed this interview, but
he will be here in THE SITUATION ROOM tomorrow to respond, along with
part two of the interview with Michael Moore. He did agree after that
interview to stick around. We taped part two. You will see it,
completely unedited. The full interview, part two of the interview,
with Michael Moore. You’re going to want to see that, tomorrow, right
here in THE SITUATION ROOM.