One of Michigan’s most likable residents sat down with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace this week and said some crazy things.
“I still think about Kamala and how I think she would have been a good choice,” Daniels said. “I don’t care what they say, because she would have done what Lincoln did.”
Chelsea native Jeff Daniels, the iconic actor and musician with five decades of hit films and prestige television series, appeared on Wallace’s “The Best People” podcast Monday to promote his next project, titled “REYKJAVIK,” in which he plays Ronald Reagan.
Daniels’s film and television work over the years has leaned heavily into history, politics, and cultural commentary. As a frequent guest on late-night talk shows and cable news, he tends to insert his politics into his promotions.
We all get the game. Actors seemingly have to virtue signal to remain relevant and chase the Hollywood mainstream. I’m numb to this, but it’s oftentimes quite hilarious, albeit ham-fisted.
According to Daniels, REYKJAVIK is a historical retelling of the failed 1986 Nuclear Summit in Iceland between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. The meeting between both leaders stands out among Cold War events because, while failing to achieve a nuclear treaty, both leaders sat face-to-face and developed a relationship culminating in the 1987 INF Treaty, banning the use of conventional ground-launched nuclear missiles.
I’m all in. Take my money. I love cinematic Cold War docudramas.
The interview kicked off fairly normally, but remember: He’s sitting across from a perpetually aggrieved Never Trumper and former communication director for George W. Bush. Her job on cable news is to fixate on President Trump while wearing the facial expression of a recently divorced middle-school principal who just learned her son voted for Trump.
The Kamala Harris comparison to Abraham Lincoln dropped my jaw. Daniels went there himself, seemingly aware of how absurd he sounded.
Daniels then unveiled his inner-boomer, reciting the hollowed-out Christianity of old-school liberals.
“The New America that’s diverse and treats everyone with equality and respect and dignity, you know, like Jesus did? We’re ready for that.”
Daniels said this as if oblivious to the fact he’s chosen to live for decades in one of the whitest (96.1%), least diverse, and most affluent cities in Michigan, which is close to Ann Arbor, one of the most diverse mid-major cities in America.
After Wallace suggested that Trump’s tariff negotiations are having some dastardly economic effect on Michigan, Daniels pounced on his home state: “Now you’re losing money, I hope you’re losing tons of money,” he said with a tinge of disgust for his neighbors.
Hit the brakes, dude.
Indeed, Daniels has collected a remarkable level of good will in Michigan. It’s hard to find anyone in this state who speaks a bad word at the mention of his name, even among right-of-center voters, and even after Daniels has openly lamented conservatives for years.
Daniels has sidestepped much of, if not all, the angst that gets directed at other mouthy actors because he has done an excellent job of promoting the state of Michigan in film, interviews, commercials, and with his very presence at Red Wings, Tigers, and Lions games.
To that point, I’ve never seen him fail to mention our state at a public speaking event.
In a roundtable event for the Hollywood Reporter in 2018, surrounded by several A-list actors that generated millions of views online, Daniel’s spoke eloquently of his need to take risky rolls such as “Dumb and Dumber,” opposite Jim Carrey, to sustain his name in the industry while living in small-town Michigan.
In a 2015 interview with PBS Newshour, Daniel’s explained his desire to stay in his hometown of Chelsea, rather than a life in New York or Los Angeles, and the questions he got from fellow actors: “What do you mean you’re going back to Michigan? It’s my home.”
“Michigan voted for Trump this time. The tariffs are going to hurt your neighbors,” Wallace stated on Monday.
“At the end of the day, that’s what’s going to do it” replied Daniels, “I think he (Trump) is a snake-oil salesman.”
Perhaps the most bizarre moment in the interview occurred when Wallace very carefully mentioned possible causes for Trump’s 2024 election victory and ticked off the high costs of college, homeownership, and cost of living expenses occurring during the Biden administration, while failing to link in any way to the inflationary spending of the prior administration or the Democrat agenda.
Daniel’s immediately launched into a whiny torrent about the loss of “decency, civility, character, and integrity” and pondered that “the Woke generation tried to change that. It’s back.”
I had to run that segment of the interview back a couple times to confirm he actually said that. A lot has been written about “the Woke generation” but the words “decent, civil, character, and integrity” usually aren’t used.
Daniels is an actor promoting a product. Perhaps he’s attempting to bait engagement. Is this a cynical ploy or the act of a true believer?
The fact remains that the sunny optimism within Daniels appears exhausted by the current moment. Presumably quite affluent from his long Hollywood career, living in a lily-white town, enjoying a level of prominence and privilege. One might think he would be unburdened by what has been…
But Jeff Daniels clearly spends a lot of time sitting on the back porch of his lakefront mansion in Chelsea coping.
Jay Murray is a writer for Michigan Enjoyer and has been a Metro Detroit-based professional investigator for 22 years. Follow him on X @Stainless31.
