Yesterday, Michael Moore, producer and director of the movie "Sicko" really hammered Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "The Situation Room" and Blitzer, in a frankly professional way, managed to milk the moment as did CNN, which posted a video on Moore's attack. Here's the transcript:
(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.
