Michael Moore tells electors: It's 'too dangerous' to vote for Trump

(Image credit: Yana Paskova/Getty Images)

published 14 December 2016

In a message to the members of the Electoral College, director Michael Moore said he is hopeful they will block Donald Trump from the presidency, in a "Profiles in Courage moment."

On Tuesday's Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Moore discussed the effort to get Republican electors to vote for a compromise candidate with Democrats that is not Trump. After musing that had he or O'Donnell urged Iran to hack Trump's servers like Trump asked Russia to do to Hillary Clinton, "somebody would pay us a visit," Moore expressed disbelief over Trump not taking his national security briefings seriously, and brought up former President George W. Bush receiving a briefing on August 6, 2001, stating that Osama bin Laden was "determined to strike in the U.S. with planes." Bush, who then went on to fish the rest of the day, "was asleep at the wheel the month before 9/11," Moore said. "We have a president-elect who doesn't even want to get behind the wheel. This is actually worse. He's putting all of us in danger."

Should something happen within the first few months of Trump's presidency, Moore is worried he will "use that event to take away our constitutional rights, to do something the Patriot Act didn't even think of doing back then." At that point, "I want my fellow Americans, regardless of if they're Democrats, Republicans, whatever you are, we have to come together and say, 'This man cannot be at the helm of this ship.'" Speaking directly to any electors watching, Moore said he knows Republican electors won't vote for Clinton, but the U.S. is in real danger should Trump enter office. "Don't do this to us," he said. "It's too dangerous, and your fellow Americans will thank you if you don't appoint him as president this coming Monday." He conceded that it's a "Hail Mary pass," but "stranger things have happened this year."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.