WASHINGTON, Feb 23, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Clint Eastwood, the iconic actor and
director who infamously delivered a speech to an empty chair at the 2012
Republican convention, is endorsing Michael Bloomberg for president and not
Donald Trump, whom he supported four years ago.
In a wide-ranging interview, the 89-year-old multiple Oscar winner told The
Wall Street Journal that while he appreciates some of the good that Trump has
done, he laments the bad and the ugly nature of today’s “ornery” politics in
America.
Trump should act “in a more genteel way, without tweeting and calling
people names,” said Eastwood, who endorsed the brash billionaire over Hillary
Clinton in 2016 because, as he said at the time, he feared she would “follow
in (president Barack) Obama’s footsteps.”
“The best thing we could do is just get Mike Bloomberg in there,” he said
in the interview released late Friday, referring to the US media tycoon who
jumped into the Democratic presidential nomination race in November.
Bloomberg, 78, is the former mayor of New York, meaning the two men have a
sliver of political experience in common.
While Eastwood is best known for his Hollywood career — starring in
popular westerns and as the rogue cop “Dirty Harry” Callahan, and directing
“Unforgiven,” “Gran Torino” and last year’s “Richard Jewell” — he also
served for two years as mayor of Carmel, California.
He puzzled the American political establishment in 2012 when he took the
stage at the Republican National Convention, where the party was nominating
Mitt Romney, and struck up a conversation with an empty chair featuring an
imaginary Barack Obama.