Wednesday on CNN’s “The Lead,” while discussing President Barack Obama visiting Flint, MI, today to address the lead in the drinking water crisis, liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore called on Obama to do more, saying, “We need President Obama to step up and do something right now. Not just tell us how he’s got our back and he feels bad for us.”
Moore said, “You know, I love President Obama and I voted for him twice. And I’m very disappointed in this. I’ve been listening to the speech, it’s still going on right now at Northwestern High School and he is just trying to reassure people that everything is okay. To drink from a glass of water, of Flint water, when a number of experts are still saying that this water is not safe. It’s still going through the same corroded lead pipes. It was such a disappointing thing to see. Your clip you just showed about he hopes that Flint can get back to where it was. Where was that? You mean before the water crisis two years ago? After we had lost 75,000 General Motors jobs? Or are we talking about back then? 20 or 30 years ago? I mean, Flint — Flint is a city that has really been destroyed. First by General Motors, then by Wall Street, and now by this Republican governor who in order to give a billion dollar tax cut to the rich in Michigan had to cut back on services, and one of the services he decided to cut back on is drinking water to a poor city like Flint. So they were hooked up to the Flint River instead of the fresh water from the Great Lakes to save money. And to give these rich their big tax break — he says he doesn’t want to play the blame game. I mean, his attorney general needs to arrest this governor for committing this crime, for poisoning the people of Flint. Every single child has been lead poisoned through this water. Every child.”
He continued, “The pipes need to be replaced. He needed to come today with the Army Corps of Engineers to start that job and he hasn’t made a single statement today saying that he’s going to actually do these things that need to get done.”
He added, “He [Governor Rick Snyder] has to be arrested and face charges for what he did. But in the meantime, most importantly, the people of Flint have got to be drinking clean water and that’s not happening. Nothing that was said today is going to make that happen tomorrow or next week or next month and after that — if we do get this fixed, how much are the value — how much is the value of a house in Flint right now? Do you know what it is? Zero. Anybody out there listening to me right now want to go buy a house in Flint? Anybody want to bring their business to Flint and create jobs there? The city has been destroyed by this, by the efforts of this governor, the efforts he wanted to make sure the rich get a tax break and then took away from the poor so he could provide that tax break.”
Moore concluded, “We need President Obama to step up and do something right now. Not just tell us how he’s got our back and he feels bad for us and, look, I’ll drink a little sip of water here. That’s not what we need. We need the Army Corps of Engineers in there. We need to be replacing these pipes. We need people to be given temporary housing if they don’t want their children drinking this water there any longer, until things are fixed. The big things need to be done. That isn’t what happened today. And I’m sorry to have to be critical of President Obama, I love the guy, you know, he walked out there, blue collar, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, looked good, sounded good. Tomorrow morning the children of Flint are drinking the same poisoned water.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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