With a country so divided two weeks out from the presidential election, who else but actor Matthew McConaughey to try and return some common sense to our lives? The Academy Award winner and now author was widely applauded for his call for unity during an appearance on Fox News in May, and on "Fox & Friends" Wednesday morning he reiterated that message.
"We're right two weeks out from the election, we're in the relative stage," he explained. "It's not inevitable who's going to win. After that happens, whether it's an incumbent and Trump or whether it's Biden, after it happens is when it's time to get constructive and not be in denial. That comment that I made back then was about, hey, whoever is still going, I do not believe it, I don't believe what happened. It's time to get constructive and not deny the fact of whatever has happened, to get - and get constructive and get - embrace the situation."
And yet, some Hollywood figures did not react constructively when, in a February 2017 BBC interview, McConaughey suggested that Americans try and actually work with Trump.
"Well, they don’t have a choice now, he’s our president,” McConaughey said of Trump's critics. “And it’s very dynamic and as divisive of an inauguration and time as we’ve had. At the same time, it’s time for us to embrace and shake hands with this fact and be constructive with him over the next four years.”
McConaughey admitted that yes, he received some Hollywood pushback for those innocuous remarks.
“Well, most of my reaction was fine and understood it and people that know me understand exactly what I was talking about as well," McConaughey said. "There were a few on the - on the fringe that, you know, if you said anything like I said there, they were like, you know, put me over here and said - said certain things, but that will happen."
But those "fringe" responses won't stop him from repeating the same message.
"I hope it's a clean election," he said. "I hope the election is clean and whichever way it goes, that there is a - a very clean transformation and transport of power, or if there is a transport or if - or if - or if Trump stays, whichever ways it goes, I hope that it's clean and that there's no debate and that we can head into 2021 knowing who, very clearly, who our commander-in-chief is. Hopefully we can know that on the 4th of November.”
Viewers will likely be wondering what his politics are, and the actor preempted those questions by calling himself "aggressively centric." If he can meet you in the middle on an issue, he'll find a way to do it.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member