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Michael Moore Addresses 25,000 Protesters in NYC: “There’s More of Us Than There are of Them!”

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Democracy Now! broadcast our daily show live from WHUT on the campus of the historically black university, Howard University in Washington, D.C., less than four hours before Donald Trump became the nation’s 45th president. Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by almost 3 million votes, but he managed to win the Electoral College. He takes office as the least popular incoming president in at least a generation. We get an update from protests in Washington, D.C., and hear the speech Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore gave Thursday night, when nearly 25,000 people gathered in New York City to protest outside Trump International Hotel and Tower near Central Park. We are also joined live by Naomi Klein, journalist and best-selling author, whose most recent book is “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate,” and Lee Fang, reporter with The Intercept who covers the intersection of money and politics.

Watch the rest of our seven-hour inauguration special

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Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” We’re broadcasting live from PBS station WHUT, from the campus of Howard University right here in the nation’s capital. It’s called the Mecca. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: On Thursday night in New York City, up to 25,000 people rallied outside Trump International Hotel and Tower near Central Park on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration. The event called for people to take part in “100 Days of Resistance.” Mayor Bill de Blasio joined a star-studded lineup of speakers that included actors Rosie Perez, Mark Ruffalo, Robert De Niro and Cher, along with activists from Greenpeace and the NAACP. The night included some humor, when actor Alec Baldwin broke into character as the president-elect.

ALEC BALDWIN: I just want to say I’ve been standing out here in the freezing cold for a long time. I have to go to the bathroom. I have to pee. But I’m holding it in. I’m holding it in. I’m not going to pee. I’m going to a function at the Russian Consulate tonight. I’m going to hold it until I get there. And then, when I get to the Russian Consulate, I’m going to have a really, really long pee, like the biggest pee I’ve ever had in my lifetime.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Alec Baldwin, doing his now famous impression of Donald Trump, which he usually does on Saturday Night Live. One of the rally’s main speakers was the Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore, whose latest film is Michael Moore in TrumpLand.

MICHAEL MOORE: New York! Thank you for giving us Donald J. Trump!

Now, first the bad news. I know. As bad as we think it’s going to be, it’s going to be worse. That’s the truth, my friends. I’m sorry to have to begin on such a depressing note.

But here is the good news. The good news is, there’s more of us than there are of them! That’s the good news! She not only won by 3 million more votes, there’s another 7 million who voted Green or Libertarian. They also didn’t want Donald J. Trump. That’s more than 10 million voters that said no to Donald J. Trump.

What Mr. De Niro said about this great city and how sad it is that this man represents not just the city now, but the country, he does not rule with a mandate. There is no mandate. Keep this in mind in your moments of despair. You are not alone. We are the majority. We are the majority. Don’t give up! I won’t give up! Don’t give up! Don’t give up! No! No! No! Sia will appreciate that.

Wow, this is an incredible crowd here. You can’t see, but they’re still trying to get in from Columbus Circle. It’s packed back there. They’re pushing over to Broadway to go all the way down to come in from the back. It’s incredible that everybody turned out here tonight. This is the beginning of our 100 Days of Resistance, 100 Days of Resistance! And that’s just the first 100 days. But I like to think positively, that it’s only going to take us 100 days. Tens of thousands of people are watching this right now on Livestream all across the world. Welcome, all of you, to New York City.

I want you to get out your devices, whatever you’re carrying. If you’re at home, go to 100daysofresistance.org. And there, you can sign up, and we are going to have missions and different things we’re going to be doing here in these first three months. Everyone—there’s lots of groups, lots of people involved, whether you’re a group or an individual. Everybody has to commit to doing something every single day now. Every single day! You don’t have to quit your job. You don’t have to drop out of school. It’s just something very small you have to do. Every day, you have to contact your member of Congress or your—one of your two senators. Every day. It takes three minutes. Wake up, brush teeth, make coffee, contact Congress. That’s the new morning routine. The phone number is (202) 225-3121. You call that number any time of the day or night, a human being answers it. There’s an actual 24/7 switchboard. Call that number. If you don’t know who your congressperson is, that’s OK. Just give them your ZIP code. Everybody knows their ZIP code. Give them your ZIP code, and they will go, “Oh, well, your member of Congress is Jerrold Nadler. May I put you through?” And they’ll put you right through. In fact, you can say, “No, I’d like his private line. Can I have a direct number?” They will give you the direct number. Each of you have one representative and two senators. They only work three days out of the week, Tuesday to Thursday. If you can’t do it all five days, on those three days, call your rep one day, call your senator the next day, and call your other senator the next day. And every day we’ll be posting what we need to be pushing for. We need to stop Rick Perry. We need to stop Betsy DeVos right now. I know her from Michigan. She’s helped to destroy our public schools. Who here promises to call Congress every day or at least three days a week? Who’s going to do it? What’s the number again? (202) 225-3121. You’re paying for the phone; you might as well use it.

What the mayor said, what the mayor of Minneapolis said, what Robert De Niro said, it’s all so important. This is not a night of rhetoric. We’re not up here spouting clichés tonight. We’re saying this is a time for action, and we will put ourselves on the line for that. When the—when the immigration authorities come to take people from New York away, the mayor has said that’s not going to be a cooperative venture. So if they decide to send the feds in anyways, we have to do something about it. I’m sorry to have to put this out there, but it’s not just going to be about coming to demonstrations like this. We’re going to have to put ourselves on the line. I’m sorry to say this. We are in a very dangerous moment in history, where a malignant narcissist and a sociopath is in the Oval Office. This is a very dangerous moment. So when they come to New York to take our Mexican neighbors out of here, who’s willing to stand in front of the George Washington Bridge and say, “Not unless you go through me”? Who’s willing to do that? Peacefully and nonviolently. Who will stand at the Lincoln Tunnel or the Holland Tunnel and say, “No, no, this is the United States of America. No!” If he tries to put up a Muslim registry, where Muslim Americans—keyword “Americans”—are supposed to sign up, I will be the first one to sign up on the Muslim registry. Who will join me? Who will join me? Will you sign up? Who will sign their name? Let’s all sign our name! We are all Muslim! We are all Mexican! We’re all women! We’re all Americans! Yes, and we are all gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender and, God damn it, we are all queer, too.

We’re going to win, folks. A little bit of pain, a little bit of discomfort, but a lot of work on our part will stop this man. He will not last the four years. It’s a dangerous combination, a narcissist and a public official, because it all is about “What’s in it for me? Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.” And when they think like that, that’s when they break the law. And that’s when he’ll go down.

I have one other idea. I have one final idea. Some reporter was just asking me, “Well, what’s the point of all this? Because no matter how much bad news he creates or there is about him, doesn’t seem to affect him.” I said, “Right. Yes, that’s right, he’s not affected by the bad news when he talks about his sexually assaulting women. He’s not affected by the bad news that comes out of him calling Mexicans rapists and murderers. That’s right, he’s not affected by that.” What’s he affected by? He’s affected by comedy! He has the thinnest skin, the thinnest skin of any bully I’ve ever met. If you make fun of him, if you ridicule him, or if you just show that he’s not popular—I remember the night after the election, on the 9th of November, a bunch of us just randomly got in the street and marched to Trump Tower. Anybody there that night? There weren’t a lot of us, but it was a good—it was a few hundred people. And he’s up there in his tower, in his penthouse, tweeting, “Demonstrators outside my home. Unfair! Unfair! Waaah! Why are they protesting me? Wrong! Wrong!” I’m telling you, my friends, this is how he’ll implode. It’s his Achilles’ heel. And we don’t need to just depend on the comedians to do this for us. Everybody here has a sense of humor. Use it! Use it! Participate in the ridicule and the satire for the emperor who has no clothes. Do this for me. Let’s form an army of comedy, and we will bring him down!

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Michael Moore, the filmmaker, speaking Thursday night in New York City before about 25,000 people who were rallying outside Trump International Hotel and Tower near Central Park. When we come back from break, Naomi Klein will join us, who attended the Peace Ball at the new African American museum of the Smithsonian Institution here in Washington, D.C., as well as Lee Fang of The Intercept. This is Democracy Now!’s Inauguration Day special. Stay with us.

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