“Newsroom” star Jeff Daniels has some alternative phrases for President Donald Trump.
The Emmy-winning actor lately sat down on MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace’s “The Best People” podcast to chronicle his storied profession, however pivoted to debate Trump’s reelection, the “collapse” of the Republican Occasion and what he feels has been misplaced within the course of.
“We’ve lost decency, we’ve lost civility, we’ve lost respect for the rule of law — lost it,” Daniels mentioned in the course of the podcast. “We have normalized verbal abuse on the internet. We’ve normalized bullying; much as the woke generation tried to, you know, change that, it’s back.”
He added, “I mean, nobody has great things to say about politicians. They never have. Go back to Mark Twain. But ideally, we’re supposed to elect the best of us. Not the worst of us. He’s everything that’s wrong with not just America but with being a human being.”
Daniels went on to argue that traits akin to character and integrity, which politicians had been as soon as required to exhibit to get elected, are actually “out the window” — and that the period of respectable GOP leaders like former President Ronald Reagan is in “our distant past.”
The actor recalled the “curious” lack of transparency relating to Trump’s personal assembly in 2018 with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, the contents of which stay unknown, and mentioned Trump left the room “looking like a child that had been scolded.”
Daniels then lamented former Vice President Kamala Harris dropping the 2024 election.
“But the collapse of the Republican Party, taking a knee, you know,” he informed Wallace. “I still think about Kamala, and how I think she would’ve been a good choice. I don’t care what they say. Because she would have done what [former President Abraham] Lincoln did.”
Daniels mentioned Harris would have ruled equally, with a “team of rivals” relatively than sycophants in her cupboard. Lincoln’s method was chronicled in writer Doris Kearns Goodwin’s prize-winning 2005 Lincoln biography, “Team of Rivals.”
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“That’s what Lincoln did, surrounded himself with the people who would disagree with him,” Daniels informed Wallace. “Not the people who would take a knee and go, ‘Yeah, more tariffs, sir, more.’ It’s the madness of King George and just the deterioration of the Republican Party.”
The actor mentioned that almost all voters who don’t assist Trump are “ready” to reside in a rustic “that is diverse and treats everyone with respect and dignity,” however that the Republican Occasion has fallen in lockstep along with his insurance policies exactly to keep away from that imaginative and prescient from flourishing.
He famous that former GOP Senate chief Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) helped verify three conservative Supreme Courtroom justices as a result of he might “see it coming.” Daniels added that he hopes that increased client costs ensuing from Trump’s tariffs will immediate his base to reassess their vote.
“I mean, the tariffs are going to hurt your neighbors. They’re going to hurt,” Wallace mentioned to Daniels.
“Which, I think, at the end of the day, that’s what’s going to do it,” Daniels replied. “You just got to go, ‘Wait a minute, the grocery bill is what? A hundred and eighty bucks more? I can’t get that car that we have to have unless I pay another eight grand? What? Who do I blame for that, who do I see about that?’”
Daniels then answered: “One person.”
Watch the complete podcast interview beneath:
