Fact Check: About that Groundless Rumor That Morgan Freeman Supports Trump's 2024 Presidential Campaign
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Claim:
Ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, actor Morgan Freeman said or wrote that he thinks a second Donald Trump presidency would be "good for the country."
Rating:
In May 2024, a number of viral posts claimed actor Morgan Freeman supports former U.S. President Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.
According to one post on X, "Morgan Freeman thinks a second Trump presidency would be good for the country. And 80% of (registered) voters agree! Yeehaw! America is getting Trumpified!"
(X user @AmericanFWoman)
The rumor seemingly started on X in late April 2024 and spread in subsequent weeks. While it is impossible to confirm or deny someone's inner monologue (the precise claim is that Freeman thinks a Trump 2024 presidential victory would be beneficial for the U.S.), we found no evidence of Freeman publicly expressing any support at all for the Republican presidential candidate, much less saying (or writing) verbatim that "a second Trump presidency would be good for the country." If he had, entertainment news publications would have documented the sentiment, considering Freeman's prominence and history of publicly supporting Democratic politicians.
Rather, in past interviews, he expressed support for the Democratic party's 2016 nominee, Hillary Clinton. And, based on his appearance in a March 2024 video to promote U.S. President Joe Biden's re-election campaign, he supports Biden — not Trump — for the White House.
Posts sharing the rumor about Freeman supposedly thinking Trump would be "good for the country" did not contain a source to substantiate the assertion, like a news article or video clip of Freeman. The allegation appeared to be made up from whole cloth. It was unknown who, or what social media account, started the rumor.
For all of these reasons, we rated the claim "Unfounded."
In a February 2017 interview with AARP magazine, Freeman said he voted for Clinton in the most recent election. He said he was "holding out hope" that Trump would "be a good president":
As for politics today, I supported Hillary in the election, and now it feels like we are jumping off a cliff. We just have to find out how we land. I'm not scared, though. I'm holding out hope that Donald Trump has to be a good president. He can't not be. What I see is a guy who will not lose.
In an April 2017 interview with the Daily Beast to discuss Freeman's "The Story of God," a National Geographic documentary series about religion, Freeman's publicist did not allow any questions about former U.S. President Barack Obama, nor then-President Trump. The reporter asked Freeman about conservatives' attacks on Islam. Apparently referring to that group, Freeman said: "There are those areas among us that paint an entire group [Muslims] with the same brush."
Fast forward to the 2024 election and Freeman endorsed Biden for a second term. In March 2024, he appeared in a video on The White House's YouTube channel alongside actors Bill Pullman, Geena Davis and Michael Douglas. In the video, Biden asked them for advice since they have played fictional American presidents.
Freeman, who played President Beck in the 1998 sci-fi movie "Deep Impact," said to Biden: "In my capacity as president, all I had to deal with was a meteor. One of the things that I came out of that with in my speech [is], hope is the strongest force we have in this country. It is the most useful and the most effective."
This was not the first time a quote supposedly attributed to Freeman has gone viral. In 2018, we debunked a false claim that Freeman posted an expletive-ridden tweet about Trump.
Sources:
"Actor Morgan Freeman Receives AARP's Movies For Grownups® Career Achievement Award." MediaRoom, https://press.aarp.org/2017-02-01-Actor-Morgan-Freeman-Receives-AARPs-Movies-For-Grownups-R-Career-Achievement-Award. Accessed 14 May 2024.
Emery, David. "Did Actor Morgan Freeman Call President Trump a 'Bonafide Sack of Sh*t?'" Snopes, 27 Aug. 2018, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/morgan-freeman-trump-bonafide-sack/. Accessed 14 May 2024.
Russia Turns on Morgan Freeman over Election "war" Video. 21 Sept. 2017. www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41348749. Accessed 14 May 2024.
Stern, Marlow. "Morgan Freeman on God, Islamophobia in Trump's America, and Keeping the Faith." The Daily Beast, 16 Jan. 2017. www.thedailybeast.com, https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/16/morgan-freeman-on-god-trump-s-islamophobia-and-keeping-the-faith. Accessed 14 May 2024.
"President Biden Chats with Famous Past "Presidents"." The White House, 2024. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCUkDm47CpY. Accessed 14 May 2024.
