San Francisco, CA – Clint Eastwood, the 86-year-old four-time Oscar winner, excoriated the current generation of Americans as weak and overly sensitive while backing Donald Trump even though the Republican presidential hopeful has “said a lot of dumb things.”
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Eastwood, a prominent celebrity supporter of the Republican Party who appeared at its 2012 presidential nominating convention, offered a harsh assessment of Americans in an interview with Esquire magazine published on Wednesday.
“He’s onto something because secretly everybody’s getting tired of political correctness, kissing up,” the acclaimed actor and director said of Trump. “That’s the kiss-a** generation we’re in right now. We’re really in a generation. Everybody’s walking on eggshells.”
“We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren’t called racist,” Eastwood added.
Given the choice between Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Trump in the Nov. 8 election, Eastwood said, “That’s a tough one, isn’t it? I’d have to go for Trump … you know, ’cause she’s declared that she’s gonna follow in Obama’s footsteps.”
It was not Eastwood’s first foray into Republican politics. In one of the most unusual speeches at a major U.S. party convention, Eastwood four years ago addressed an empty chair used to symbolically represent President Barack Obama on stage at the Republican convention in Tampa, Florida, in a rambling denunciation of Obama.
Asked by Esquire what troubled him most, Eastwood referred to his chair speech.
“What troubles me … I guess when I did that silly thing at the Republican convention, talking to the chair,” Eastwood said.
In the interview, Eastwood made reference to the uproar in May that followed Trump’s comments accusing the judge overseeing a fraud lawsuit involving Trump University real-estate seminars of being biased against him because of Trump’s pledge to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to block illegal immigrants. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel is an American of Mexican descent.
Eastwood told Esquire that Trump was portrayed as “a racist now because he’s talked about this judge.”
“And yeah, it’s a dumb thing to say. I mean, to predicate your opinion on the fact that the guy was born to Mexican parents or something,” Eastwood said. “He’s said a lot of dumb things. So have all of them. Both sides. But everybody – the press and everybody’s going, ‘Oh, well, that’s racist,’ and they’re making a big hoodoo out of it. Just get over it. It’s a sad time in history.”
The Eastwood interview was one of the top trending stories on Twitter.
“Clint Eastwood was born in 1930. Let’s start a list of things that weren’t considered racist when he was growing up,” tweeted Sarah McBride, the national press secretary of the Human Rights Campaign gay rights group.
Others praised Eastwood, who rose to fame playing surly cowboys and cops. “Thank you Clint Eastwood. You’ve always been a personal hero. You said what needed to be said,” tweeted Ruari.
“when I grew up, these things were not called racist”. 100% correct, and millions of African Americans were segregated and denied their right to vote.
When Trump talks about the good olden days, it’s code language for racists like him.
Wait, did he just fire 5 shots or 6?
“Oh, well, that’s racist”
Yes, saying that a judge can’t judge fairly simply because of his ethnic background is racist.
It’s a shame our kids will grow up with these racists groups known as Black Lives Matter & SJP.
Well, this post made my day too! Clint Eastwood’s fantastic. As celebrities go, he really knows what he’s talking about when it comes to politics. It’s totally bizarre, but people listen to celebrities, so they’ll listen to him, even though he’s a Republican.
As for his comment about racism, it could go in two directions:
1) Society wasn’t as sensitive about racial issues as it is today. (I think we can agree that this lack of sensitivity wasn’t necessarily a good thing.)
2) Today’s society is HYPER-SENSITIVE about racial issues – people look for any pretext to peg something controversial as racism, even when it’s not.
Hypersensitive haters/race-baiters probably want to interpret his comment according to Option #1 , but I think that Clint Eastwood meant to go with #2 . He’s an old person now – he didn’t sound like he was at his best in his stellar performance at the last RNC. Don’t expect him to get up there and deliver a flawless speech anymore, and since this IS Clint Eastwood we’re talking about, don’t come at him with guns blazing. We’ve all seen what he can do. 😉
I’m so happy that Clint Eastwood has spoken up. Now I don’t have to bother to think for myself and listen to 2 sides and try to understand what both candidates bring to the table. My hero, the actor who is exactly the smart tough gunslinger he’s portrayed in movies, has spoken. (Maybe not to a chair this time around. Maybe he’ll talk to a refrigerator.) What a relief. Just point the way Mr. Eastwood and I will blindly follow. My hero.