Michael Moore: Trump presidency a ‘dangerous’ risk

On this week’s UpFront, Michael Moore, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker and director of Michael Moore in Trumpland, discusses US presidential election politics and explains why he changed his mind about supporting Hillary Clinton.

In the Reality Check, Mehdi Hasan explains how the Big Banks are still out of control, and could lead to another financial meltdown.

And in the Arena, we debate the cause of Venezuela’s economic turmoil.

Michael Moore: ‘No choice’ except Hillary Clinton

As the polls tighten and with days to go, can Hillary Clinton defeat Donald Trump and win a historic election in the US?

According to filmmaker Michael Moore, a former critic turned supporter of Clinton, her rival, Donald Trump, now has a real chance of winning.

“People should take [a Trump victory] seriously,” says Moore, an Oscar-winning filmmaker and director of ‘Michael Moore in Trumpland’.

“Trump is the embodiment of just about every bad trait you could come up with,” says Moore.

Moore, the filmmaker behind the films Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, says that although he is wary of Clinton’s history on foreign policy and her ties to Wall Street, there is no other choice.

“This is what we have to work with,” says Moore. “I have no choice at this point, especially considering who the other candidate is.”

“The best candidate to run against Trump was called Bernie Sanders,” says Moore. “I think this wouldn’t be so close, and we wouldn’t be so nervous, if he were the candidate.”

“I think and I hope that she is a different person,” says Moore of Clinton. “She says she is, she’s adopted two-thirds of Bernie’s platform.”

Asked about whether he is worried that Clinton would drag the United States into yet another conflict, Moore says “that there is a better chance than not of Hillary Clinton getting us into a war”.

But, he says, she’s “not the same Hillary” – or at least hopes she’s not – and if she goes back on her word, Moore vowed to be “her worst nightmare”.

In this Headliner, Michael Moore – filmmaker and activist – discusses the 2016 US presidential election, his support for Hillary, and why he believes Trump shouldn’t be elected.

Reality Check – Have the big banks changed? Don’t bank on it

In 2008, as major financial institutions across the globe were on the verge of collapse, governments intervened by bailing out banks that were “too big to fail”.

Six years on, history may be repeating itself. Has Big Finance changed at all? Are the signs pointing to another crisis?

Despite the bailout, little has changed; in the US: 11 of the 15 banks that received the most bailout money are larger than they were before the recession.

In this week’s Reality Check, Mehdi Hasan explains why we may be heading for another financial meltdown.

Arena – Who is to blame for Venezuela’s economic collapse?

Venezuela, the country with the world’s largest oil reserves, is in turmoil. Heavily in debt and with soaring inflation, its people continue to take to the streets in protest.

Were years of socialist economic policies the cause of this catastrophe, and could it have been predicted?

According to economist and former Venezuelan Planning Minister Ricardo Hausmann, the answer is yes.

“What happened is that President Hugo Chavez used a period of high oil prices, not to put some money aside, but to quintuple the foreign debt,” says Hausmann. “If Maduro is out soon, I think we can turn the country around relatively quickly with sound economic policies.”

However, former Chavez adviser Temir Porras says it’s not the socialist policies to blame, but dropping oil prices and poor debt oversight.

“It’s not a problem of amount of debt, it’s a problem of management of that debt,” says Porras. “There has been a sharp fall in oil prices and there has been, I would say, a management of that crisis that has been deficient.”

Porras adds that the opposition wants to retry policies that failed before, and that the scale of the crisis is exaggerated.

In the Arena, Ricardo Hausmann and Temir Porras debate the roots of the economic collapse in Venezuela.

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