‘I’m not scared of Trump’: Josh Brolin reveals he was friends with the president and admits he knows a side of him most people don’t

Josh Brolin isn’t holding back about his friendship with President Trump. The 57-year-old actor talked to shared his thoughts about the president and what might happen in politics going forward in a recent interview.

According to People, Brolin said he isn’t worried about Trump talking about running for a third term. The president has mentioned this idea many times, even though the 22nd Amendment makes it illegal. Brolin said clearly, “I’m not scared of Trump, because even though he says he’s staying forever, it’s just not going to happen.” He added that if it did happen, he would just “deal with that moment.”

Brolin knew Trump before he became president, so he says he knows “a different guy.” But the actor was honest about his thoughts on Trump’s business past and the power he has now. Brolin found it interesting that Trump built an expensive hotel in New York City in the late 1970s, which Brolin called “in the middle of a cesspool city” back then. “That’s interesting to me,” Brolin said, adding that it took real drive to do that.

Brolin thinks Trump’s early success involved shady dealings

While Brolin admitted that Trump had business skills, he thinks “a lot of corruption involved” in those early projects. For Brolin, the biggest change is how much control and power the president has now. He feels that what people see today is “power unmitigated, it’s unregulated.” Hearing someone who knew Trump personally call his power “unregulated” is a strong comment about today’s political world.

Even with his criticisms about Trump’s power, Brolin praised the president’s skill at marketing and connecting with people. Like many leaders, Trump understands what frustrates people after leaving power, which helps him connect with voters.

“There is no greater genius than him in marketing. He takes the weakness of the general population and fills it. And that’s why I think a lot of people feel that they have a mascot in him. I think it’s much less about Trump than it is about the general population and their need for validation,” the Avengers: Endgame star said.

Brolin explained why he thinks the president connects so well with regular people. He believes Trump “takes the weakness of the general population and fills it.” In Brolin’s view, the president works as a “mascot” for people. This means the political movement is less about Trump himself and more about what regular people need emotionally.

Brolin met the president after being in the 2010 movie Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. Back then, Trump was mainly known as a real estate businessman, which is why Brolin talked about those past business deals instead of just current policies. In today’s tech-driven world, public figures face new challenges, including how AI chatbots exploit security vulnerabilities that can affect anyone’s privacy.

Brolin also talked about rumors involving his new movie. He’s in the new Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. His character, Monsignor Wicks, is a controversial religious figure who wants power. Some people wondered if Brolin based the role on Trump. Brolin said no, the president wasn’t his inspiration. He joked that he “could make something up and say it was rooted in a kind of Trumpian greed,” but that wasn’t true.