“There is no better.” Donald Trump, after the death of Robert Redford. But what the actor said about the US president
Robert Redford on the production set of production “A River Runs Through”, near Livingston, Montana. Photo: Linda Best / AP / Profimedia
President Donald Trump said he considered “great” to the late actor and director Robert Redford, after finding out about his death, notes Newsweek.
“There were good years in which no one was better,” Trump said in front of journalists, before leaving the White House to the United Kingdom, according to AFP.
“It was a time when it was the most vogue. I always thought it was great.”
Robert Redford died at the age of 89 “at his residence in Sundance, in the Utah Mountains-the place he loved, along with the people he loved,” said Cindi Berger, the actor's publicist. She did not specify the cause of death.
Robert Redford performed the journalist Washington Post Bob Woodward in the political thriller “All the President's Men” (1976), a film about the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. He also played in the political comedy “The Candidate” (1972), where was Bill McKay, a lawyer who accepts to run for the American Senate.
In 2016, Redford received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from former President Barack Obama. Although it was often a critic of Donald Trump, the current American president brought this tribute on Tuesday.
Apart from the film career, Redford has also been a activist, involved in environmental protection campaigns, including as a member of the Board of Directors of Natural Resources Defense Council, a non-profit organization that promotes environmental protection policies.
Politico presents some of his opinions about politics and politicians.
“It's time for Trump to leave.”
As a liberal, Redford was unlikely to be an admirer of Donald Trump, although in 2017 he stated that the Sundance Film Festival, which he founded, will “stay away from politics” and will remain “focused on the stories told by artists.”
However, in November 2019, Redford published an editorial in the NBC in which he spoke of “a dictatorial attack of President Donald Trump about everything this country represents.”
He wrote then: “As last week's hearings, our tolerance and respect for the truth, the rule of law, the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression – were threatened by a single man.”
“It's time for Trump to leave,” Redford added.
He said he feels “inappropriate” in his own country
Redford has not always had such a critical opinion about Trump. In 2015, after he announced his candidacy to become the Republican representative to the presidential, Redford told Larry King: “I'm glad he's there because, as he is and saying things he says, I think he shakes things a little and I think this was very necessary. Because, on the other hand, everything is so fad.”
In 2018, one year after the beginning of Trump's presidency, Redford said he felt “inappropriate” in his own country, without mentioning the president directly.
“For the first time since I remember, I feel that I have no place in the country where I was born and in the citizenship I loved all my life,” he wrote in an article (deleted later) for the Sundance Institute. “For weeks, I look sadly as our civil servants have disappointed us, turning to bigotism, wickedness and mockery, now transformed into ordinary instruments of political game.
How can we expect the new generation to take a step forward and get involved, be interested in public life and aspire to engage, when all we show them is how to duel, attack and destroy each other? ” wrote Redford.
