Moore on O’Reilly: ‘I’m still standing and he’s not’
Filmmaker recalls his clash with fired Fox TV host
Michael Moore is one of many who is gratified by last week’s firing of Bill O’Reilly from Fox News Channel amid allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior. The firebrand filmmaker famously sparred with the conservative TV personality on his The O’Reilly Factor in 2004, after the release of Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, which criticized George W. Bush and his administration’s War on Terror. At a 15th anniversary screening of his similarly controversial Bowling for Columbine, Moore recalled the angry reactions both films spawned from Bush supporters, O’Reilly included. There was one particular instance when O’Reilly was “passing me by on the street in a limo, sees me, tells the driver to screech to a halt, and he jumps out of the car yelling at me,” Moore told the audience at Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday night. “Someone happened to capture a picture of the moment. Look at O’Reilly’s face — it’s the scariest frickin’ thing. But I’m still standing and he’s not.”
The topic of O’Reilly was brought up after a festivalgoer asked Moore whether conservatives are unwilling to engage with him as his star has risen as a leftwing provocateur. (The filmmaker, who initially endorsed Bernie Sanders, released pro-Hillary Clinton movie Michael Moore in
TrumpLand weeks before the election last fall.) But Moore’s blunt prediction last July that Donald Trump would win has earned him fans on the right.
That “helped actually, because the people that voted for Trump heard me, too,” Moore said. “I was recognizing the fact that they were angry and upset, and that they weren’t all bigots and racists. … Since the election, I get stopped practically every day by at least one Trump voter.”
It’s not that Moore wanted Trump to be president, though. In fact, quite the opposite. “When I first said it on (HBO’s
Real Time With Bill Maher), I just got booed,” Moore said. “And I was like, ‘I didn’t say it because I wanted it to happen. I’m just trying to ring a warning bell here.’ There’s a bubble in Brooklyn, folks, and it’s toxic. … I saw what was going on (in middle America) and everybody was just throwing a party.”