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Michael Moore believes 'evil genius' Trump will be a two-term president

(CNN) Michael Moore believes President Donald Trump is an "evil genius" who will be re-elected.

The documentary filmmaker spoke to CNN while promoting his upcoming film about the impact of Trump's 2016 victory, "Fahrenheit 11/9."

"Too many people in the summer of 2016 were so sure Hillary [Clinton] was going to win, saying no one is going to vote for this idiot," Moore said. "He could win again. I operate as if he is a two-term Trump. I have to. If you think any other way you are guaranteeing that whoever is going to run against him will lose."

Moore's explanation to the phenomenon of a Trump presidency?

"I think the man is an evil genius and he was able to outsmart the smartest person ever to run for president," Moore said. "He figured out how to win by losing the election. How did that happen? Historians are going to deal with this for years to come."

Moore said he believes Trump is behind numerous White House leaks, including the anonymous op-ed published by The New York Times earlier this month.

"Trump wrote it. Trump or one of his minions wrote it," he said. "He's the master distractor. He's the king of the misdirect. If we have learned anything by now, it's that he does things to get people to turn away. Let me give you the line in there that is most identifiable that he wants the public to believe. It's the line that says, 'Don't worry, adults are in the room.' That's the idea, to get us to calm down and look away from what he's really doing."

As for what moviegoers will see in Moore's Trump-focused film?

"We made a decision on the first day of this film that we were not going to chase the news cycle. Because why do that? People see on the nightly news they don't need to go to a movie theater to watch that," Moore explained. "We are presenting the larger picture of what is going on. I'm also going to show people how Trump didn't just fall out of the sky. There's a long road to Trump and we have all sadly been on it."

"Fahrenheit 11/9" opens in theaters September 20.

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