Deadline’s Doc Talk Podcast: ‘Superpower’ Director Sean Penn Blasts Liberals For Willingness To Sacrifice Ukraine For Peace: “An Idiot Show Of Politically Correct Morons”

The Deadline Team
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Sean Penn, director of the new Ukraine war documentary Superpower, does not hold back in an in-depth interview for Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast.

The two-time Oscar winner becomes emotional recalling what he witnessed inside the presidential palace in Ukraine on the very day Russia launched its brutal invasion of the country. Weaving through darkened passageways on his way to meet one on one with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Penn describes the “extreme courage” he saw as the Ukrainian leader tried to mount a defense against a nuclear-powered neighbor.

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Penn goes after the right for failing to be outraged over Russia’s abduction of thousands of Ukrainian children. But he saves his sharpest criticism for the left, targeting those who call for peace talks with Russia that could jeopardize Ukraine’s freedom.

“How dare we talk about their negotiation?” he demands, asking Americans how they would feel if somebody seized New York “and your mother and father lived there and now you can negotiate it away for peace?”

He reacts to being called a Ukraine war hawk, and blasts liberals for a misplaced sense of compassion, labeling them an “idiot show of politically correct morons.”

But some of Penn’s most personal comments come as he evaluates where he developed his moral compass, a defining quality that has compelled him to speak out on any number of divisive political questions – and often earned him ridicule from the right wing (he’s been parodied in everything from songs to the movie Team America: World Police). He says it comes from witnessing corruption, not just in others, but in himself.

That’s on the latest edition of Doc Talk, hosted by Oscar-winning writer-filmmaker John Ridley and Deadline’s Documentary Editor Matt Carey. It is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios, presented by National Geographic Documentary Films.

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