Filmmaker and liberal activist Michael Moore said Democrats should pursue a government shutdown to deter GOP lawmakers from trying to vote on a Supreme Court nominee following Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death.
“This is the one time I think we’re going to shut it down,” Moore said Sunday on MSNBC’s Weekends With Alex Witt. “If they’ve told us they’re going to spend these six weeks before the election, trying to rush through somebody that the American people is not going to want to have on the Supreme Court, then we have to take their money away from them. The Democrats must hold up the continuing resolution and shut down that government that is going to give us a Supreme Court justice that the majority of Americans are clearly going to say on Nov. 3, that they don’t want.”
A government shutdown could happen on Oct. 1 if Congress and the White House cannot come to an agreement on a stopgap spending bill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed the idea of shutting down the government to try and stop a GOP vote on a high court nominee. “None of us has any interest in shutting down government, that has such a harmful and shameful impact on so many people in our country,” the California Democrat said Sunday on ABC’s This Week.
Instead, Pelosi said Democrats have a host other options to try and delay the vote. “We have our options. We have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now,” she said in response to a question about whether Democrats might try another round of impeachment to stall or stop a nomination. Pelosi also encouraged people to go out and vote.
Within hours after news breaking that Ginsburg died at the age of 87 on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would set up a floor vote if Trump went ahead with a third Supreme Court pick. Trump, who said on Saturday he expects to announce his nominee for the Supreme Court “next week” and will be picking a woman, already has two picks, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, who have been confirmed to the high court.
So far, two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, said the upper chamber should wait until at least the November election to vote on filling the vacancy on the Supreme Court.
Another way Moore suggested people put pressure on Republicans is to protest daily and write letters to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle opposing efforts to move ahead with a Senate vote.
“We need to be out in the streets. We need to be in front of the local offices in your states, where the U.S. senators have their local offices. We need protests out there every single day,” Moore said. “People need to get on social media, they need to call the Senate switchboard. … You need to call your senators, you need to call these five to seven Republicans who may end up performing a profile in courage, and doing the right thing and encourage them to do that. We also need to contact our own people, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.”
