Appearing as a guest on Sunday's MSNBC Live with Alex Witt, liberal film maker Michael Moore condemned Republicans for pushing to quickly fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.
As host Alex Witt responded approvingly, the liberal film maker fretted that Roe v. Wade would be overturned and demanded that Republicans and conservative Christians keep their "grubby hands off the bodies of women," declaring that they "want to keep their feet on the necks of women."
After playing a clip of far-left New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez encouraging supporters to vote for Democrat Joe Biden even if they don't like him, Witt asked about a "woman's right to choose" as she invited Moore to respond:
Couple that, Michael, with what you were just saying about a woman's right to choose and be the designator of what she does with her body. Do you think that this is the event -- the loss of Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- that unites progressives and moderates? Is this Supreme Court vacancy -- is that going to motivate Democrats from all corners to vote for Joe Biden?
Moore predicted that liberals would become more motivated to vote because of the issue of filling a Supreme Court seat, and recounted a famous quote of Ginsburg from decades ago demanding that men get off the "necks" of women. He then referred to a more recent quote of hers in which she hoped that the confirmation of her successor would be put off until next year:
Her request this week before she died was to say, "Please, my fervent wish is that I not be replaced until we have a new President -- whoever the President is on November 3 -- that when that President takes office, that is who should replace me." That was her last and only request. We need to honor this last request of hers.
He then advocated for keeping Roe v. Wade in place as he continued:
We all need to take a pledge to do that. And especially men because we're not effected personally by Roe v. Wade, so it's even more incumbent upon us to stand up and speak up for women's rights and to keep the grubby hands of the Republican party and the Christian right off the bodies of women, who have their own right to decide what they want to do. I think that that is just so crucial right now. We haven't honored her first request yet from 50 years ago. We still haven't taken our feet off women's necks -- that's why they're so anxious to get in there right now and get this justice, this right-winger in there and get rid of Roe v. Wade because that's what they want.
After Witt injected, "Yeah," Moore concluded: "Keep their feet on the necks of women."
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Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Sunday, September 20, MSNBC Live with Alex Witt:
2:15 p.m. Eastern
ALEX WITT: Couple that, Michael, with what you were just saying about a woman's right to choose and be the designator of what she does with her body. Do you think that this is the event -- the loss of Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- that unites progressives and moderates? Is this Supreme Court vacancy -- is that going to motivate Democrats from all corners to vote for Joe Biden?
MICHAEL MOORE, FILM MAKER: Yes, absolutely. I think that this is -- a lot of what I've watched on cable news this weekend -- there seem to be a lot of people thinking this is going to help Trump -- that this is going to inspire his base. No, the majority of the population -- the majority gender is women. and women are going to vote by at least 10 percentage points over men in this election. They've made a big mistake in going after this and doing it in such a kind of cruel way. She's not even dead for 24 hours, and they were already on it. I think this is going to have a huge impact, and Alexandra is correct. This isn't about whether we like Joe Biden or not -- this is about saving our democracy.
And I just want to say this in the last minute here -- I assume Joe Biden is going to speak shortly -- that Ruth Bader Ginsburg made two very important requests in her career. Fifty years ago -- 40, 50 years ago, at the beginning, when she first stood in front of the Supreme Court as a lawyer in a gender discrimination case, and she said, "I have one request here, and that is not to ask favor for my gender, it is simply to ask our brethren -- men -- to please take your feet off our necks."
WITT: Yep.
MOORE: That was her request 40, 50 years ago. Her request this week before she died was to say, "Please, my fervent wish is that I not be replaced until we have a new President -- whoever the President is on November 3 -- that when that President takes office, that is who should replace me." That was her last and only request. We need to honor this last request of hers. We all need to take a pledge to do that. And especially men because we're not effected personally by Roe v. Wade, so it's even more incumbent upon us to stand up and speak up for women's rights and to keep the grubby hands of the Republican party and the Christian right off the bodies of women, who have their own right to decide what they want to do. I think that that is just so crucial right now. We haven't honored her first request yet from 50 years ago. We still haven't taken our feet off women's necks -- that's why they're so anxious to get in there right now and get this justice, this right-winger in there and get rid of Roe v. Wade because that's what they want.
WITT: Yeah.
MOORE: Keep their feet on the necks of women.
