Actor Matthew McConaughey hinted that he might consider running for governor of his home state of Texas in the future.
In a Tuesday interview on “The Hugh Hewitt Show” when asked if he would ever run for governor, the 51-year-old Academy Award-winning actor said, “I don’t know. I mean, that wouldn’t be up to me. It would be up to the people more than it would me.”
He was on the podcast promoting his new book called “Greenlights.”
“I want to get behind personal values to rebind our social contracts with each other as Americans, as people again,” he said, adding that the country doesn’t “trust each other.”
Matthew MCConaughey
“Look, politics seems to be a broken business to me right now,” McConaughey added. “And when politics redefines its purpose, I could be a hell of a lot more interested.”
In further explaining how he feels about the current state of politics, the actor delved into getting behind “personal values.”
“I want to get behind personal values to rebind our social contracts with each other as Americans, as people again,” he said, adding that the country doesn’t “trust each other.”
“We don’t trust each other, and that leads to us not trust in ourselves, which if that becomes epidemic, then we’ve got anarchy,” the “True Detective” actor continued. “I’m all for the individual, and I think it’s for — to make collective change that the individual needs to look in the mirror and say, ‘How can I be a little bit better today?’”
After that, McConaughey emphasized that “Coming out of the election right now, we’ve got to stabilize. This country’s got to stabilize first before we start to say, OK, here’s how we’re marching out of this together, forward.”
The current governor of the Lone Star State, Greg Abbott (R), faces a re-election contest in 2022. Texas places no term limits on its governors.
If McConaughey runs for governor and actually wins, this wouldn’t be the first time that a Hollywood actor became a governor of a U.S. state. Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California in 1966 and served two full terms before being elected president in 1980. Though former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura isn’t an actor per se, it should be noted that he served a full term as governor of Minnesota in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
While the actor has never publicly endorsed President Donald Trump or any other candidate for president, he has been openly critical of the country’s left wing when it comes to the controversial president. McConaughey said in 2016 after Trump was elected that “A lot of people that I know on the far left were in denial after he had become the president.”
“I remember saying, well look, regardless of [Trump’s] politics, in the very first question, what do we say in America is successful? What do we give credit and respect?” McConaughey continued. “The top two things are money and fame. And I said guys, just on a very base level, Trump has those, so I don’t know why we should be so surprised that he got elected.”
You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @Douglas_P_Braff.
