Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn despises Donald Trump and isn’t shy about sharing his disdain for the so-called “president” when asked about him.
Appearing on The Louis Theroux Podcast, Penn said he had a new nickname for the Donald: “The tough guy who never was.”
Asked by Theorux if he had ever met Trump, the actor replied, “I have briefly, very briefly, many years ago,” and added his first impression is that Trump was a typical “salesman.”
“I sometimes wonder if people on the left underestimate him, and there’s this common conception that he’s stupid, right? Which is hard to buy,” Theroux said. I personally struggle with the idea that’s sufficient to explain what he is. He seems so smart.”
“Well, I think that people will look back and see that he was extremely smart for his time and what it valued. But what he values is so base,” Penn explained. “I won’t equate that with intelligence. It’s truly void of soul. And really—this is the other thing—it actively engages in cruelty often.”
“To watch that, whether it’s what Elon Musk is doing now for him, with him, I don’t know if there’s any thought behind it at all except to value destruction of things and people. And so, I can’t associate that with any intelligence that’s going to do humankind any good.”
“What does he value?” Theroux asked.
Penn: “His own instrument reward system.”
Theroux: “To reward what? “His ego and vanity?”
“Yeah. The tough guy who never was,” Penn remarked. “He was his father’s punk from Queens for a long time. You know, the tall Q-tip guy in school. He got into business. He got around a lot of real tough guys. Gangsters.”
“Dodged conscription. Cadet Bone Spurs,” Theroux said.
“He found that he didn’t have any of the complications of what I think you or I would associate with morality that would allow him to ride side saddle with real tough guys,” Penn said. “That’s what it seems like.”
Here are some excerpts from the Theoroux-Penn discussion:
