Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight has tried to defend Donald Trump’s despicable comments about women.
While Republican leaders and a host of celebrities have all rushed to denounce the GOP nominee over lewd and explicit comments he made in leaked audio from 2005, in which he said his fame allowed him to grab women “by the pussy,” the “Midnight Cowboy” star has actually given the brash businessman his unequivocal support.
In a series of Twitter posts on Saturday night, the 77-year-old Voight said he didn’t know “of too many men who haven’t expressed some sort of similar sexual terms toward women, especially in their younger years.”
He also claimed Trump’s words were “not as damaging as Robert De Niro’s ugly rant,” referring to his fellow Hollywood actor calling Trump almost every insult there is in a “Get Out The Vote” ad.
Here are Voight’s tweets in full:
De Niro has so far not responded to Voight’s comments. But they have prompted a backlash among Twitter users, who have dubbed him “weak” and questioned what happened to his soul.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.