‘If you support the racist, you are the racist’

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore on Wednesday didn’t mince words when discussing Donald Trump’s free-wheeling press conference that equated neo-Nazi’s with anti-fascist protestors, arguing that the president is a racist—and so is anyone who supports him.

Moore told Don Lemon that the first thing he did after Trump’s briefing at Trump Tower was flip on CNN, where the host was delivering an emotional response to the president’s rhetoric.





“It was very powerful,” Moore said of Lemon’s speech. “You talk about African American kids who have to walk in to a high school under name Robert E. Lee, a statue of a man who wanted them dead or enslaved. I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want any fellow American … to ever feel the way you describe how so many black kids grow up in this country having to feel. This has to stop.”

“He was elected by white America,” Moore said, later adding “they voted for Trump because they were angry. They voted for Trump because they wanted to throw a bomb into the system that hurt them.”

Moore said he believes white Americans have a right to be upset, but black Americans also have a right to be upset.

“[Black Americans] don’t go to the polls and vote for the hater,” Moore said. “Black Americans, by a large margin, vote for the person who doesn’t hate, who’s trying to love.”

Moore explained that most white people he’s spoken with insist they’re not racists, even if they supported someone who may be. “If you vote for a racist, what are you then?” Moore asked.

“Because it sure sounds like racism to me.”

Asked by Lemon if he believes Trump is a racist, Moore replied, unequivocally, yes.

“He’s absolutely a racist,” Moore said. “He’s not as stupid as people want to believe he is. He knows exactly what he’s doing, he knows the words to use and I’m certain the 63 million people who voted for him actually—the vast majority of them—love that press conference.”

Lemon countered that Trump supporters might “take offense” to begin called racists, prompting Moore to provide what Lemon called an “uncomfortable” comparison.

“If you hold down the woman while the rapist is raping her, but you didn’t rape her, are you a rapist?” Moore asked. “Let’s cut the BS, let’s start speaking honestly. If you vote for a man who says what he said today—that the white nationalists were the victims, that he equated George Washington and Thomas Jefferson with Robert E. Lee and said that the people there trying to stop the racism, the anti-racism protesters, that they were the violent ones—it just went so far.”

“That’s a very powerful and uncomfortable anecdote you shared, and people will think you’re comparing Trump voters to rapists,” Lemon said.

“Yeah, it’s uncomfortable, isn’t it?” Moore asked. “Because enablers of immoral behavior, of criminal behavior… it is absolutely criminal to stand behind the people that killed Heather Heyer, that beat the heads in of people who were trying to speak their minds in Charlottesville. If you are there, and if it you participate—even though you’re not the actual person doing it—if you helped to put Donald Trump in office, you need to think about this before you kneel down and say your prayers tonight. Think about this person that you now have leading this country.”

Lemon restated he found Moore’s comparison “uncomfortable.”

“Well, it was uncomfortable watching this today, and anyone who supports that—if you still support the racist, you are the racist,” Moore replied. “That has to end. I’m not sorry. I’m not letting anybody off the hook here. White people who voted for him.”

“America has to stand up,” he continued. “We cannot any longer mealy-mouth about this. Anybody who enables, anybody who votes for and supports a racist, is a racist. You are culpable white America, I’m sorry. But there is redemption for you.”