Michael Moore on Trump: Don't Forget 8/6/01 Intel Briefing

The president's job is to keep us safe, and Trump will fail with this attitude: Moore
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 14, 2016 6:03 AM CST
Michael Moore on Trump: Don't Forget 8/6/01 Intel Briefing
Filmmaker Michael Moore, right, reacts as Secret Service block him to access to restricted areas inside Trump Tower in New York on Saturday, Nov. 12, 2016. During a demonstration, the documentary filmmaker entered the lobby with a camera crew in tow and asked to see Trump. He was denied.   (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

As of Tuesday, Donald Trump has had the chance to attend 36 daily presidential national security briefings, per Michael Moore's tally. As of a week ago, the president-elect said he had attended, at most, three. Moore joins the chorus of those who see this as a deal-breaker, and he explains why in a Facebook post titled, "Donald Trump Is Gonna Get Us Killed." Moore provides a history lesson: While vacationing in Texas, George W. Bush was handed the daily briefing on August 6, 2001. Writes Moore: "He glanced at it, set it aside and then went fishing for the rest of the day." The briefing's headline: "BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO STRIKE INSIDE US." Inside it referenced the use of planes. Bush ended his vacation four weeks later, writes Moore. "In the fifth week, bin Laden attacked the US with planes."

"It's one thing to have a president who was asleep at the wheel," he continues. "But, my friends, it's a whole other thing to now have a president-elect who REFUSES TO EVEN GET BEHIND THE WHEEL!" In Moore's view, Trump's "utter neglect of duty" will result in the loss of American lives. Moore isn't the only one commenting on the topic. The AP reports that at the Arab Strategy Forum in Dubai on Wednesday, ex-CIA director Leon Panetta said he has "never seen a president who has said, 'I don't want that stuff'. Never seen it." A former world leader agreed: "It won't last," responded David Cameron. "It can't last," said Panetta. As for Moore, he last week confirmed in an email to the Hollywood Reporter that he planned to "non-violently disrupt" Trump's DC inauguration. (Trump had something to say about the briefings in 2014.)

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