‘We need an FDR’: Michael Moore lays out why he’s still rooting for Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic presidential race

With the surge of former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, many candidates have left the race — including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar. The race is now, essentially, a two-person competition between Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, and when filmmaker/activist Michael Moore was interviewed by MSNBC’s Ali Velshi over the weekend, he explained why he is still hoping that Sanders receives the nomination.

Moore stressed that the next Democratic presidential debate will mark the first time that voters will have a chance to see Biden and Sanders debating one-on-one as opposed to having to share the stage with five or six other candidates. The next debate is scheduled for March 15.

“We really need to see the two of them go at the issues,” Moore told Velshi. And health care, Moore asserted, is one of the areas in which Sanders is a stronger candidate.

Velshi brought up some of the more vociferous Sanders supporters who have attacked Warren on Twitter — and Moore responded that it’s unfair to blame the Vermont senator for what only a small minority of people do.

Moore told Velshi, “It’s Twitter. It’s a swamp…. Why are we talking about this when 87 million Americans have no health insurance or are underinsured? This is a non-issue. Bernie is the opposite of all of that.”

Moore went on to say, “We need an FDR,” implying that he views Sanders as someone who, like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s, would fight for the American working class.

Velshi is originally from Canada, which has universal health care. And the MSNBC host asserted, “In the environment that we’re in with coronavirus, my system would actually work better than America’s system…. Every other major democracy in the world has universal health care.”

Moore agreed, asserting, “I love how Trump’s coronavirus people at those press conferences tell people that if they feel they’re sick, don’t go to work. Oh, really? This isn’t a European country where, when you’re sick, you’re going to stay home and get your full pay. Not here. You’re telling Americans, half of whom are living paycheck to paycheck, ‘Just stay home.’ They’re not going to stay home. And this is why we’re going to have — hopefully not — more people infected because more people will go to work …. They’re gotta pay the rent.”