Bryan Cranston Says ‘F**k You’ to People Hoping Trump Fails

Bryan Cranston is certainly not a fan of Donald Trump, having said he liked Bernie Sanders while he described himself as “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” in a 2015 interview promoting his film Trumbo, which is essentially what people say when they don’t understand politics and want to sound intelligent and reasonable while pointing out how not racist they are. Basically, he was a Hillary man without being insufferable about it.

So it probably comes as a bit of a surprise that Cranston had a big “f**k you” for people who want Trump to fail as president in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter promoting his new film, Last Flag Flying. 

It’s just astonishing to me. President Trump is not the person who I wanted to be in that office, and I’ve been very open about that. That being said, he is the president. If he fails, the country is in jeopardy. It would be egotistical for anyone to say, “I hope he fails.” To that person I would say, f**k you. Why would you want that? So you can be right?

I don’t want him to fail. I want him to succeed. I do. I honestly do. … And if you’ve got a good idea that helps the country, oh man, I’m gonna support you. I don’t care if you’re a Republican and I’m a Democrat or whatever, I don’t care. A good idea’s a good idea. Let’s do that. We’ve got to get away from this idea that our country is political football, and someone with a different opinion is the enemy. Assume they love this country as much as you do, and there’s always room for improvement. How can we make it better?

He’s not really wrong here, at least insofar as it would be bad for everyone if Trump fails. Failure by the president means failure for the country. Look at what happened when Herbert Hoover and, to a lesser extent, George W. Bush failed. And neither of them were tweeting that a guy with a nuclear arsenal potentially capable of reaching the United States has a small dick at 2 A.M.

But being a great actor doesn’t make you politically informed, either. Many of the things that Trump and the Republicans hope to accomplish need to fail for the good of the country, like cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Not to mention Trump is actively trying to make health insurance more expensive for many Americans so he can repeal Obamacare and make health insurance much, much more expensive for all Americans. I think we can agree that hoping Trump fails at that is appropriate.