Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore pleaded with an anchor from business channel CNBC Monday to "please do your job" and report on problems facing 99 percent of Americans, instead of the wealthy one percent.
"Moore is not one to hold back when it comes to capitalism, corporate American and now the movement to Occupy Wall Street," the CNBC anchor began the segment by announcing. "He joins us this morning from outside the [New York Stock Exchange]."
"Well, we're not actually outside the New York Stock Exchange," Moore revealed. "You have moved me down here to Broadway, so that -- apparently, you've been told or you're not allowed to have me there in front of the [stock exchange]. You know, when I've interviewed with you in the past, you've tried to actually bring me into your studio at the stock exchange and the stock exchange will not allow me inside of the building... so the last two interviews we've done in the past few years have been done out on the street, we've done them outside in front of the stock exchange."
"Why do you think that is?" the anchor wondered. "Because I asked around this morning and could not get a straight answer as to why we couldn't have you here sitting next to me."
"I think they probably don't want me to come inside the New York Stock Exchange and be critical of this unjust and unfair economic system that we have, that benefits the wealthiest few in expense of the many," Moore explained. "It's too bad that they are that afraid of a guy in a ball cap with a high school education, coming in there to say that... I'm not who you need to worry about. You need to worry about the millions who have lost their jobs. You need to worry about the people who have lost their health care. You need to worry about the 99 percent who are quite angry."
Moore added that as a business network, CNBC really had a duty to shine a light on problems like income inequality.
"This is a rigged casino. I don't know why anybody would put their hard-earned money into this especially after what happened in this last decade. The guys on this street played with people's futures, people's pension funds, credit default swaps, no regulation from D.C. and it's still going on! And if I could just very respectfully ask you and CNBC, you know, you are in this, you are journalists, it's is your job not just to report that the DOW is up 95 points already today, but go in there and find out what's really happening. Who's making this money? Who's dividing this pie up so that the one percent get the majority of it? That's really the story. That's the story you're fellow Americans want you to do," he pleaded.
"They want to know where their jobs went. You know, where their future is going to be. That's the job of CNBC. So, please do your job! Please!"
"We look out for the 45 percent of Americans who have 401Ks," the anchor admitted.
Watch this video from CNBC, broadcast Oct. 24, 2011.
(H/T: Think Progress)
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