Jon Voight Slams Liberal Hollywood for 'Propaganda' Before Trump Awards Him National Medal of Arts
Academy Award-winning actor Jon Voight took aim at Hollywood culture before being awarded the National Medal of the Arts from President Donald Trump on Thursday.
“They’re programmed, you see,” Voight said of his fellow artists in an interview with the U.K. Daily Mail at the Trump International Hotel near the White House.
“There’s been an attack with propaganda that was inserted over the years, you know. A lot of it in the ’60s,” Voight elaborated.
“And people don’t realize that they’ve been undermined. The Democratic Party’s been undermined, overtaken by Marxists, and, you know, and atheists,” the star said.
“They took God out of their platform. Can you imagine that?” Voight asked.
He was likely referring to the Democratic Party’s decision to remove the reference to God in the phrase “God-given potential” from the party’s 2012 platform, The Washington Post reported.
By contrast, the 2012 GOP platform mentioned God 12 times.
Democrats also removed an affirmation of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
However, on the second day of their 2012 convention, Democrats quickly changed course after receiving significant media coverage on the decision, and then-President Barack Obama intervened, according to ABC News.
Convention chairman Antonio Villaraigosa called the voice vote three times to try to implement the change back, and then declared “the ays have it,” though it was unclear they did.
Loud boos erupted in the convention hall after Villaraigosa made the call.
Nonetheless, God was placed back in the platform and Jerusalem was affirmed as Israel’s capital.
On Thursday, Trump awarded the National Medal of Arts to Voight, along with country-bluegrass musician Alison Krauss, philanthropist Sharon Percy Rockefeller and the Musicians of the U.S. Military, The Hill reported.
During the ceremony, Trump called Voight “an actor of astonishing range and depth” and “one of America’s greatest living legends in cinema,” according to a White House transcript of his remarks.
The president heralded the 80-year-old’s performance in movies like “Midnight Cowboy,” “Mission Impossible” and “The Champ” — the latter of which Trump called one of the best boxing movies ever made.
“Everyone was crying at that movie. I tried not to, Jon. It wasn’t easy,” Trump said.
“We love having you here, especially since it’s somebody that I happen to really like.”
During the ceremony, Voight did a brief jig to the theme song from “Midnight Cowboy.”
Nice dance step from Jon Voight! Congratulations Jon! Received National Medal of Arts from Pres Trump! A True Patriot! @jonvoight @realDonaldTrump #TheFive #ThursdayMotivation #tuesdayvibes pic.twitter.com/wzcTxBHZUT
— Ryan Cale (@rcale1776) November 21, 2019
Voight co-starred with Dustin Hoffman in “Midnight Cowboy,” which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1970.
The veteran actor personally garnered the Oscar for Best Actor for his 1978 performance in “Coming Home,” which was about a Vietnam War veteran.
Voight has been a very vocal supporter of Trump, calling him “the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln” in a May video posted on social media.
The native New Yorker endorsed Trump during the Republican primary in March 2016.
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