Henry Rollins: ‘Bored Rich Guy’ Donald Trump Doesn’t Want Presidency
Henry Rollins reiterated his support for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and called Donald Trump a “bored rich guy just being crass” in a wide-ranging interview with The Daily Beast.
Though on-hand to discuss He Never Died — a new horror-comedy in which Rollins plays an immortal cannibal who’s reunited with his estranged daughter — the political punk vet offered his thoughts on the 2016 election, Sanders’ electability and Trump’s appeal.
“I’m not a Trump fan at all, but he will say what’s on his mind,” Rollins said. “Like, ‘No more Muslims!’ You just said that. And of course in this country, a lot of people agree. Trump, one day he held up his cell phone and said, ‘Here’s Lindsey Graham’s number!’ I could not not laugh … He would be a disastrous president, but at the same time, I don’t think he wants to be president. I think he’s a bored rich guy just being crass.”
Rollins noted that Republicans wouldn’t have stood for Trump’s “racist and xenophobic” posturing during the Reagan era, and blamed cynicism towards Washington D.C. on the left and right for allowing a such a non-mainstream figure to emerge. “[Trump] bespeaks of an America that’s sick of war, sick of a crap economy, sick of the richest economy in the world with poverty, and nobody on either side of the aisle seems to want to fix it — otherwise we would have.”
While Rollins is throwing his support behind Sanders, he copped to some political cynicism of his own, saying, “he’ll never get elected” and “his concepts are way too radical for America.
“I like him, because I think he’s a straight shooter,” Rollins added. “I love his progressive ideas about health care, election campaign reform and foreign policy. I’ve always liked him because he’s honest to a fault. He’s a true statesman.”
Rollins did suggest Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton had a good chance of winning the election, but said, “I think [she] will be astonishingly mediocre. I think she’s a brilliant woman, she’s just kind of status quo and we won’t get anywhere. That sucks.”