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Glenn Beck Says Opposing Trump Is ‘Moral, Ethical’ Even if It Means Clinton Wins

The radio personality Glenn Beck introducing Senator Ted Cruz at a campaign event in Davenport, Iowa, in January.Credit...Rick Wilking/Reuters

Glenn Beck, the fiery conservative media personality and former Fox News host, says that he briefly considered voting for Hillary Clinton and called opposing Donald J. Trump the “moral, ethical choice” — even if doing so leads to Mrs. Clinton winning the presidential election.

His comments were made after the release on Friday of a 2005 recording of Mr. Trump boasting about sexual assault that set off a war between the presidential nominee and a broad swath of the Republican establishment, including Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker.

Reacting to the recording, Mr. Beck wrote over the weekend that each person “must decide what is a bridge too far” and said he supported calls for Mr. Trump to withdraw from the presidential race.

“It is not acceptable to ask a moral, dignified man to cast his vote to help elect an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity,” Mr. Beck wrote on Facebook. “If the consequence of standing against Trump and for principles is indeed the election of Hillary Clinton, so be it. At least it is a moral, ethical choice.”

Mr. Beck was a high-profile symbol of the Tea Party movement whose show on Fox News ran until 2011, when he founded TheBlaze TV, a subscription-based online streaming network. He left the Republican Party in 2015 after accusing it of being insufficiently conservative.

Mr. Beck has spoken at length over the years about his dislike for Mrs. Clinton and was an ardent Trump opponent during the Republican primary campaign, likening him to Adolf Hitler and advocating on behalf of Senator Ted Cruz. With Mr. Trump in the general election, though, Mr. Beck said in an interview on Sunday with Vice News that he had considered voting for Mrs. Clinton.

“I will tell you that it has crossed my mind to vote for Hillary,” he said in the interview, which aired Monday night. “It has crossed my mind. I think Donald Trump is so unstable, so dangerous, that it has crossed my mind.”

In the end, though, Mr. Beck said that he decided against voting for Mrs. Clinton. He said that he would instead back a little-known third-party candidate, Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party. “I reject the notion of a binary choice,” he wrote on Tuesday on his personal website. “I will not vote for the ‘lesser of two evils.’ ”

On Facebook, Mr. Beck said he wanted his fans to know that “the world does not end” if Ms. Clinton wins the election. He said pushing back against a Clinton White House through protests, the media or “political and procedural maneuvering” would be a worthy effort, but warned conservatives that they would be morally tainted by a vote for Trump.

“If one helps to elect an immoral man to the highest office, then one is merely validating his immorality, lewdness, and depravity,” he wrote.

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