George Clooney, actor and prominent Democrat donor, said “everybody” worries about being targeted by President Donald Trump’s administration, but added that won’t stop him from standing up for what he believes in.
Since Trump was elected in November under a campaign which promised retribution, some of the president’s loudest critics have put down their megaphones out of fear he may come after them next.
“Sure, everybody worries about it,” Clooney told CNN’s Anderson Cooper when he was asked about it. “But you know, if you spend your life worrying about things, then you won’t do things.”
“I want to be able to look at my kids in the eye and say where we stood and what we did at certain times in history, and I have no problem with that,” he said.
Although Clooney is a lifelong Democrat, he broke from the party last summer to pen an op-ed urging former President Joe Biden to drop out of the race. He subsequently supported former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump has occasionally launched verbal attacks on Clooney, calling him a “second-rate movie star” and a “backstabber.”
But the president has not directed his administration to open an investigation into Clooney or initiate any formal process targeting him.
That doesn’t mean celebrities are safe, or feel safe, from Trump’s wrath.
Robert DeNiro, another actor and prominent Democrat donor, told AFP that Hollywood companies fear Trump could hurt their business.
"They have big businesses, they have to worry about the wrath of Trump, and that's where they have to make a decision: do I succumb to that or do I say no?" DeNiro said.
Throughout show business, the anti-Trump rhetoric seems to have been dramatically turned down compared to the level it reached when Trump was elected in 2016.
Even Saturday Night Live, one of Trump’s biggest TV critics, had cast its line up to sarcastically praise Trump and claim to support him all along, after he won the election.
So far, the president has only dipped his toe into regulating Hollywood, threatening and rescinding tariffs on foreign-made films and appointing Jon Voight and others as special ambassadors to “fix” Hollywood.
But having gone after law firms, his political opponents, media organizations, a Democrat fundraising platform, and universities, there’s no telling where the president will direct his retribution next.
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