Jon Voight, the 80-year-old Ray Donovan co-star who won a Best Actor Oscar in 1979 for his role in the anti-war film Coming Home , per IMDB.com , released a two-part video to his Twitter account on Friday. The clips praise Donald Trump and even compare Trump favorably to Abraham Lincoln, the 16th U.S. President who effectively ended slavery in America by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.
“This job is not easy, for he’s battling the left and their absurd words of destruction,” Voight says in the videos, as reported by The Hill . “Our nation has been built on the solid ground from our forefathers, and there is a moral code of duty that has been passed on from President Lincoln.”
Later in the video Voight calls upon Americans to stand up for what he calls the “truth” that Trump is “the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln.”
Voight has been a Trump supporter since at least 2016, and was one of the few Hollywood celebrities to take part in Trump’s inauguration, as The Hill recounted. At the inauguration, Voight also gave a speech in which he compared Trump with Lincoln, claiming that the legendary president — who preserved the Union in the Civil War — would be “smiling” over Trump’s election.
Watch Voight’s video in the two tweets below.
To my fellow Americans. Part 1. pic.twitter.com/srw4zXCRKJ
— Jon Voight (@jonvoight) May 25, 2019
To my fellow Americans. Part 2. pic.twitter.com/uhqpbzwHhS
— Jon Voight (@jonvoight) May 25, 2019
Though Voight received approval on Twitter from fellow Trump fans, many other Twitter users were unimpressed with the actor who made his Oscar-nominated, big-screen debut in the grim, 1969 drama Midnight Cowboy. Comedian John Fugelsang even made reference to Voight’s fraught relationship with his daughter, actress Angelina Jolie.
As soon as Jon Voigt is done giving his thoughts on Trump being the best POTUS since Lincoln he’s going to share some parenting tips.
— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) May 25, 2019
Voight split with Jolie’s mother when the future star was only two years old, and according to an account by E! Online , remained a distant and estranged figure in her life until 2016 during her split with actor Brad Pitt. At that time Voight began to reestablish a relationship with his daughter.
Another Twitter user responded to Voight with a purported quote from Lincoln himself, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool then speak out and remove all doubt.”
The quote is often attributed to Lincoln, but according to Quote Investigator , he likely never said those words.
Another Twitter user recalled Trump’s appointment of Voight earlier this year to the John F. Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts board of trustees, calling Voight’s latest remarks, “a true dishonor to JFK.”
Voight is one of the few actors who has openly supported Trump, cravenly overlooking the president’s caging of children, vicious racism, disdain for the rule of law, rampant corruption, and treasonous welcoming of Russia’s attack on our democracy. https://t.co/ejVskVbrdW
— Democratic Coalition (@TheDemCoalition) May 25, 2019
In addition to his 1979 Oscar win and Midnight Cowboy nomination in 1970, Voight has been nominated for an Oscar on two other occasions — for his lead role in the 1985 thriller, Runaway Train , and again in 2002 when he was nominated in the Actor in a Supporting Role category for his portrayal of iconic sportscaster Howard Cosell in the Muhammad Ali biopic Ali , per IMDB.com .
