Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman on Thursday unleashed on President Donald Trump during a no-holds-barred appearance on MS NOW, but only after graciously asking “Last Word” host Lawrence O’Donnell if he could “use profanity” to do so.
Freeman last appeared on the program in 2020 following the death of civil rights activist John Lewis and read his final essay on the show. O’Donnell on Thursday noted just how different the world is now and asked Freeman if he had any thoughts on the matter.
“Can I use any profanity?” Freeman asked.
He continued, “Well, we have somebody sitting in the White House who’s leading us down a shithole. I can’t personally understand how a convicted felon, convicted, [with] 34 felon — felonious, is that the word? — counts of wrongdoing gets to be president.”
Freeman was referring to the 2024 hush money trial in New York that saw Trump found guilty on all 34 charges of falsifying business documents to cover up an alleged sexual encounter with porn actor Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
“How do you do that?” Freeman asked. “When say, ‘Well, he was…,’ I don’t care. That ruling went down before he stepped into the Oval Office. So it just doesn’t make sense to me.”
Trump has denied wrongdoing, dismissing his conviction as a “rigged decision.”
Freeman was promoting “The Gray House,” a Prime Video series he helped produce that dramatizes the true story of a woman-led network of Union Army spies during the Civil War. But he argued that the U.S.’s current problems reflect an even bleaker historical period.
“I’m constantly reminded of Germany in 1935,” he told O’Donnell. “What was happening there? The brownshirts, those people that are marching through, particularly Berlin, and rounding up people, putting them in boxcars and sending them off.”
Freeman continued, “Now this administration wants to build large detention centers.”
Trump has rapidly expanded the number of immigration detention centers over the course of his current administration. The number of detainees has increased by 50% over the past year, with innumerable reports describing inhumane conditions inside the facilities.
O’Donnell noted that “the condition this country’s now in” has demoralized large swaths of young people who can’t help but feel that the political landscape is “the worst” it’s ever been, asking Freeman what he would tell those youths.
The actor replied, “I don’t know what I would say to young people, other than if you are at all aware of where we’re headed, where we are right now and where we’re headed — and if you don’t agree with it — there is one sure way to change the direction of our country: Vote.”
