Reflecting on the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency, actor Tom Hanks recalled that prior to Trump’s win, he didn’t think it was possible.
Before the election, Hanks recalled, he said something like, “Well, you know what? Then aliens are going to land on my front lawn and dinosaurs are going to wear capes.”
“If I had said instead, if that happens we are going to — neo-Nazis are going to hold torchlight parades in Charlottesville and Pocahontas jokes will be said in front of the Navajo code talkers. That would have been just as hellacious in imagination, I think, as what we have,” Hanks said in an interview with David Axelrod for “The Axe Files.”
Alongside Meryl Streep, Hanks is co-starring in the upcoming film “The Post,” which tells the story of The Washington Post’s controversial decision to publish stories about the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department’s secret study of US involvement in the Vietnam War.
The movie will be released later this month, and it comes as the administration continues to double down on attacks against the press.
Axelrod asked Hanks about the President targeting news organizations for publishing stories he doesn’t agree with.
“How much does that concern you?” Axelrod inquired.
Hanks said it concerns him, “because it’s monkeying around with our Constitution.”
“It is relatively obvious, I think, what is trying to go forward, when you tear down these institutions to a level of, so you can’t believe anything that is in any of them,” Hanks said. “That raises the stock of those agenda-filled other institutions and whatnot, so that if you can’t believe them, well, that means you get to believe some of the other stuff that is in these.”
CNN’s “The Axe Files” airs Saturday at 7 p.m. ET.