Richard Gere Says Trump ‘Must’ve Had A Horrible Childhood’

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Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP via Getty Images

Actor Richard Gere recently shared his opinion on President Donald Trump, and while a lot of people generally agree with him, there are some critics who think his analysis feels a bit too… optimistic.

To be fair, Gere has already made it very clear that he opposes Trump. Last year, he accused the president of nearly destroying the country within six months, while also calling him “crazy” and saying, “He’s a dark, dark presence.” So, clearly he’s not a fan. But this time, he suggested that things will probably get better.

In a clip circulating on social media, Gere, 76, said Trump, 80, is “an old man” who has “hurt so many people.”

But he also focused on how he doesn’t think the impact of Trump’s policies or rhetoric will last forever. “He’s a rogue personality who’s destroyed so much,” Gere said during the interview. “He’s hurt so many people, and he has caused so many deaths. But it will be over.”

Additionally, he sort of psychoanalyzed the president and reflected on why he is the way he is. “He is an old man; he’s a damaged personality. You can see he must have had horrible childhood to be the man that he is now,” Gere added.

And while some people praised Gere for saying this and said he really “gets it,” others felt the take was still too positive, in a way. The idea that Trump might not have had a good childhood also didn’t seem particularly relevant to some critics.

“A lot of people had horrible childhoods not steeped in wealth and somehow do not do these things and instead grow empathy despite their unthinkable traumas,” one person wrote on Reddit. “Trump and his regime are all pathetic evil spoiled rich losers.”

“I’m so tired of people saying it’ll be over as soon as he’s out of office. THIS DOES NOT END WITH HIM,” someone else said.

Gere actually did elaborate on this a bit.

By the sounds of it, he doesn’t necessarily think that having a different president will fix things. Instead, he said, “I think the world is definitely with pendulums, so we have been moving in this authoritarian way for a while, but I think it’s gone to its limit, and it’s coming back.”

He added, “And I think what we can do is it comes back with wisdom, that we will have learned from this process, that we will be better for having going through this and a sense of responsibility for and to each other.”

Still, some people thought it was easy for Gere to say as a celebrity with a lot more privilege than the average American. “He’s allowed to be optimistic, ultimately he’ll be ok no matter who is in power,” someone argued.

Of course, the White House is mad at him.

In another clip circulating on social media, Gere criticized the Trump administration for getting rid of the U.S. Agency for International Development. “What they did with HIV/AIDS saved tens of millions of lives—continuing. [Trump] stopped that day one,” Gere said. He called Trump “insane” for this and said, “He wouldn’t even know what it stands for— USAID—and he has idiots around him who have the same ignorance about it.”

Clearly, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung felt called out by this. Instead of addressing Gere’s comments in a professional way (or simply scrolling past it and moving on with his life), Cheung bashed Gere and acted like his opinion was irrelevant because of a rumor from the 1990s. “Sorry, not going to listen to a guy that may have put a gerbil up his a–,” Cheung wrote on X.

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Paige Sheffield (she/her)