Mark Hamill is once again voicing his opinion on President Donald Trump and his 2.0 administration, expanding Monday on why he thinks the reality TV star-turned-politician might, sadly, be the leader America deserves.
“It’s one thing for him to have sneaked by the first time — when he got reelected, that’s on us,” Hamill said, lamenting the 2024 election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in a wide-ranging interview on “WTF With Marc Maron.” “That’s where I’m really ashamed of — because I always thought there are more decent Americans, honest Americans than there are others. And it proved I was wrong. I’m in the minority in my own country.”
It’s not the first time Hamill has expressed frustration over how Trump’s reelection reflects on the state of the United States. On Nov. 6 of last year, as the White House win solidified for Trump, the “Star Wars” icon memorably wrote on X: “They say we get the leaders we deserve. Either that has just been disproven, or this is not the America we all thought we were living in.”
They say we get the leaders we deserve.
— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) November 6, 2024
Either that has just been disproven, or this is not the America we all thought we were living in.
Sitting with Maron on Monday’s “WTF” episode, the star of “The Long Walk” reflected on filming “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” during Trump’s first presidential run against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“It was odd because when we were doing one of the sequels was the first time Hillary was running against him, and English people on the crew would come up to me and say, like, ‘Mark, why do Americans love Donald Trump so much?’” the 73-year-old actor recalled. “And I’m going, ‘I don’t know a single person who can stomach him.’”
He admitted to at one time thinking that Trump’s showmanship made him “amusing,” but that his perception changed in 2011 amid the soon-to-be politician’s public attacks on President Barack Obama’s birthplace.
“I used to think, when I was living in New York doing theater, he was amusing to me. What’s not funny about a blowhard egomaniac with zero self-awareness?” Hamill said. “He was a buffoon. But what turned me on a dime was in 2011 when he went on the birther thing, which was interesting because that was his first foray into politics and he got a great response from that. Oh, I’m appealing to the racists and the conspiracy theorists.”
Hamill recently made headlines for sharing that he was on the brink of leaving the United States for the United Kingdom after Trump’s reelection before his wife Marilou York convinced him it was the wrong move. She made clear that leaving would be like Trump winning.
“She’s very clever,” he said at the time. “She didn’t respond right away, but a week later she said, ‘I’m surprised you would allow him to force you out of your own country.’ That son of a bitch, I thought. I’m not leaving.”
Listen to Hamill’s full “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast interview here.
