Penn Jillette: Donald Trump is Scrooge McDuck | Big Think

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Penn Jillette says that despite Donald Trump's apparent craziness, the real estate mogul's move into entertainment is a good role for him in our culture.

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PENN JILLETTE:

Penn Jillette is a cultural phenomenon as a solo personality and as half of the world-famous Emmy Award­-winning magic duo Penn & Teller. His solo exposure is enormous: from Howard Stern to Glenn Beck to the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. He has appeared on Dancing with the Stars, MTV Cribs, and Chelsea Lately and hosted the NBC game show Identity. As part of Penn & Teller, he has appeared more than twenty times on David Letterman, as well as on several other TV shows, from The Simpsons and Friends to Top Chef and The View. He co-hosts the controversial series Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, which has been nominated for sixteen Emmy Awards. He is currently co host of the Discovery Channel's Penn & Teller Tell a Lie and the author of God, No! and Presto!

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TRANSCRIPT:

Donald Trump is not batshit crazy. Donald Trump also does not wear a toupee. I have been this close to Donald Trump’s head, and that is real hair growing out of his head.

I actually – I enjoy Donald Trump’s company. And I actually think it’s kind of good that Donald Trump exists. You know, he kind of plays this Scrooge McDuck role in our society that’s kind of fun. I think that having a wealthy person who’s fun and in public is kind of a good role to have in our culture. We have Bill Gates, you know, who is off curing malaria, you know. Bill Gates has never been flamboyant, he’s never – doesn’t really talk about his wealth very much. Malcolm Forbes, of course, does. But having a guy that’s flamboyant and really, really rich, I think, is a nice thing for us to all ruminate on. I think he’s playing kind of a good role. I mean, you have someone playing the jester role and the fool role and someone playing the – all these characters that swirl around us in the arts. And Donald Trump has moved himself into the arts. He’s obviously real estate, he’s obviously business. But he’s moved himself into the arts. He’s become a performer. By definition, he’s a TV star. I think it’s a good role.

Now I disagree with Donald’s politics, very, very much, although I agree with some of them. I think he got – he was wrong on the birther stuff, although that’s an okay question to ask. When that question is answered he probably should have dropped it. You know, asked and answered, we’re done.

I’m certainly respectful of his opinions on politics, but I don’t think he should have shown disrespect to the way our election works. I mean I think that one of the wonderful things about a bloodless coup is the fact that we accept that voting works. And there was no evidence of cheating on the part of Obama. My guy lost by a lot. You know, my guy was Gary Johnson. My guy lost by a lot. And I would have loved Gary Johnson to win. I would have loved to see what it was like to not be killing so many people overseas and have more freedom here in this country. I would love to see that. But Obama won. He just, he just did.

I think one of the things about Donald Trump that’s interesting is he lives in a rarefied atmosphere where it’s possible that he doesn’t get enough feedback, enough people rolling their eyes at him. It’s a danger more in show business than it is with wealth.

He has wonderful children. His daughter and his sons that I know, you know, Eric, Don and Ivanka do seem to respect him and love him and also speak to him honestly. And a job that our children have is to keep us honest; they do a pretty good job.

I wish I’d got to spend more time with Donald Trump speaking freely. He – I said whatever popped in my head in the Board Room and in meeting with Donald. I tried to play the game properly, but I also tried to, you know, I remember that during the press conference for the all-star season of Celebrity Apprentice, Donald was down in front of us speaking with all of us behind him. And he said, “These are all the all-stars. They’ve all supported me in what I’ve said publicly.” And I said, “I haven’t.” And he said, “No, no, Penn hasn’t. That’s correct.” And it was a moment I was really proud of and also a moment where he really shined, I thought...

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