Dennis Quaid has revealed he will vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming United States presidential election, which is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, 5 November.
Trump served as the 45th US president from 2017 to 2021. In 2020, Quaid was rumoured to have been paid to feature in a $300m (£233m) pro-Trump coronavirus ad campaign, which he denied.
The actor, 70, claimed Trump, who is on trial in Manhattan for allegedly corruptly influencing the 2016 presidential election, deserved a second incumbency because he is “sincere”.
Speaking to Piers Morgan on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Quaid claimed Trump’s hush money trial has been unconstitutional and is “a weaponisation of our justice system”.
The actor is set to star as the 40th US president Ronald Reagan in an upcoming biopic directed by Sean McNamara. He has previously also played Bill Clinton in HBO movie The Special Relationship.
“Trump is the most investigated person, probably in the history of the world, and they haven’t been able to really get him on anything,” he claimed.
Prosecutors have said Trump attempted to “hoodwink” American voters in the build up to the 2016 election using a “catch and kill” scheme to buy up stories about his alleged sex scandals and keep politically crushing stories away from the public.
The former president is accused of directing his then-attorney Michael Cohen to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 just weeks before Election Day to buy her silence about her story about having sex with Trump 10 years earlier.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide reimbursing his lawyer for paying off Daniels. He has pleaded not guilty and denied ever having sex with Daniels.
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
“What is the crime?” Quaid asked of the ongoing trial. “I still can’t figure it out.”
The Breaking Away star admitted he often winced at Trump’s comments during his presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020 but said the politician’s achievements outweighed his controversies.
“The only thing I liked about Trump was everything he did,” Quaid said, claiming Trump had “defeated ISIS in three weeks”.
“He stands up to people, and that’s what makes him a leader,” the actor said. “So, you know, people might call him an assh*le, but he’s my assh*le.”
He continued: “I really feel he is working for the American people. That’s what he’s all about and I do believe that to be true and sincere.”
In a closing statement to jurors at Trump’s hush money trial on Tuesday, Manhattan District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said Trump had committed a “subversion of democracy”.
According to Steinglass, Trump sought to rob voters of the truth, “to manipulate and defraud the voters, to pull the wool over their eyes in a coordinated fashion”.
