Joe Piscopo admits Trump support was 'the nail in my coffin in Hollywood'
Joe Piscopo was an "old Blue Dog Democrat" in 2016 when he received a phone call from Donald Trump's presidential campaign team.
The "Saturday Night Live" alum, who had been longtime pals with "The Donald," was asked to do a speech at the Tampa fairgrounds. At the time, the celebrity businessman was running for president.
In his new memoir, "Average Joe," the comic and actor wrote that he knew that publicly supporting Trump would be "the forever death knell, the nail in my coffin in Hollywood."
Piscopo, now 73, told Fox News Digital he has zero regrets about supporting Trump, even if it meant getting shut out of Hollywood.
"I made the right move, but boy, they don't want to hear it out in Hollywood," said Piscopo.
"Now, I don't care. The country's in such a mess. And Donald Trump is doing such a great job at this point… It's not idolization of anybody. It's not me going gaga over anybody. It's the right thing for America. And Donald Trump tapped into what's right for America."
"I know, from knowing him all those years, that he loves his country more than anything else," Piscopo shared. "So yeah, I supported him, and they'll shut you down in Hollywood. But that's OK… I did what's right in my heart."
In his book, Piscopo wrote, "I thought it was best for the country that Hillary [Clinton] did not become president." His stance on Trump's political rival never changed.
"I don't hate Hillary," Piscopo explained to Fox News Digital. "I found Hillary rather charming when I met her. [My conservative friends] go, 'Joe, you can't say that!' But she was. When she was the first lady, I chatted with her. She couldn't have been more charming. There's no hate there. But [I felt] Donald as president could be cool."
"Look, Donald Trump tapped into something that was missing in America, and that is the people," he continued. "It was 'We, the people.' People may not like to hear it, but he was so on message with this… All the politicians in Washington… they've forgotten.
"Even folks in my old party, they just didn't care about it… When people asked, 'You're going to vote for Donald Trump?' I said, 'Unapologetically, yes.'"
Piscopo may have had hesitations initially about switching parties, but his mind was forever changed when he agreed to give that speech. He described arriving at the Tampa fairgrounds and witnessing "roughly 20,000 people" just waiting to hear Trump speak.
Piscopo was stunned.
"It's like a rock concert," he told Fox News Digital. "I [couldn't] believe it. This is 'The Donald.' So now I'm going over my speech. It wasn't a comedy… Let's bring manufacturing back. Let's believe in blue-collar workers. Let's help out the inner cities – all the things I believe in.
WATCH: 'SNL' ALUM JOE PISCOPO DETAILS HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP
"I'm reading it [and] my back is to all the people and all the action going on. And then I hear the loudspeakers say, 'And now, let's all join together and say the Pledge of Allegiance.' I go, 'Pledge of Allegiance? Who does that anymore?' I automatically put my hand over my heart, and I pledged allegiance to the flag. And everybody's saying it. The Florida Highway Patrol – everybody."
"Look, I'm too old to idolize anybody," he shared. "I just know [Donald] was right for the country. And I don't like when somebody's bashed when they shouldn't be, when I see the reality of it all."
In his book, Piscopo wrote that witnessing the "hope and joy" of the crowds that day convinced him he made the right choice.
"It's ironic that it took a billionaire from New York City to tap into the heart of these decent, hardworking folks and seem to honestly understand what they stood for," he wrote. "That someone cared enough about the regular men and women of this great country."
"I never looked back," he added.
In 2017, Trump claimed his place as America's 45th president.
Piscopo described Trump as "a loyal friend," someone who has "a real soft side," he insisted.
"I've known Donald Trump for a hundred years," the New Jersey native told Fox News Digital. "He was always respectful. He was always kind. He's the guy when we would go, 'We're going to Atlantic City,' and what does Donald Trump do? He'd send a jet up… How respectful is that? He didn't have to send a jet. I could have driven down two hours away. [But] it's Trump-style… It was the best of times. It really was."
"He was 'The Donald,' and I was 'Jersey Joe,'" Piscopo chuckled. "That's how I know Donald Trump. He would do charities all the time. They'd go, 'Joe, could you go to the Trump National Bedminster, and can you do a charity?' I'd go, 'Sure, let's go raise some money.' And it was always for charity. And who would show up? Donald and [his wife] Melania. Every single time.
"And [every time] he was warm, he was funny. He would remember everybody's name. He'll say, 'How's your uncle John?' 'Remember that guy you told me about? How is he doing?' That's the real Donald Trump. And you're looking back, and you're going, 'Wow, we've got to let America see that.'"
Piscopo wouldn't only support Trump at the polls. In 2024, he showed up at Manhattan Criminal Court during Trump's hush money trial as a sign of loyalty and friendship.
"When he went through that whole political persecution and the madness… and everything wrong about the political persecution of Donald Trump, I went to the courtroom," he said.
"I wanted to protest political persecution. But I [also wanted] to support my friend Donald Trump… It's friendship. It's loyalty. It's not forgetting who you are, where you're from. That's the Donald Trump I know. And if someone doesn't see it, I feel sorry for them because they're missing out on a great thing."
In November 2024, Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States. His win against Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to lead a major party ticket, marked the second time he defeated a female rival in a general election.
"I feel sorry for the people who don't want to listen and are going to hate," Piscopo reflected. "I didn't hate Hillary. I didn't hate Biden. I didn't hate Obama. The hate's got to be put aside. You just embrace the goodness that is there."
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The 911 presidency: Trump flexes emergency powers in his second term
WASHINGTON -- Call it the 911 presidency. Despite insisting that the United States is rebounding from calamity under his watch, President Donald Trump is harnessing emergency powers unlike any of his predecessors. Whether it's leveling punishing tariffs, deploying troops to the border or sidelining environmental regulations, Trump has relied on rules and laws intended only for use in extraordinary circumstances like war and invasion. An analysis by The Associated Press shows that 30 of Trump's 150 executive orders have cited some kind of emergency power or authority, a rate that far outpaces his recent predecessors. The result is a redefinition of how presidents can wield power. Instead of responding to an unforeseen crisis, Trump is using emergency powers to supplant Congress' authority and advance his agenda. 'What's notable about Trump is the enormous scale and extent, which is greater than under any modern president,' said Ilya Somin, who is representing five U.S. businesses who sued the administration, claiming they were harmed by Trump's so-called 'Liberation Day' tariffs. Because Congress has the power to set trade policy under the Constitution, the businesses convinced a federal trade court that Trump overstepped his authority by claiming an economic emergency to impose the tariffs. An appeals court has paused that ruling while the judges review it. The legal battle is a reminder of the potential risks of Trump's strategy. Judges traditionally have given presidents wide latitude to exercise emergency powers that were created by Congress. However, there's growing concern that Trump is pressing the limits when the U.S. is not facing the kinds of threats such actions are meant to address. 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President George W. Bush, grappling with the aftermath of the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil, invoked the law just 14 times in his first term. Likewise, Barack Obama invoked the act only 21 times during his first term, when the U.S. economy faced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. The Trump administration has also deployed an 18th century law, the Alien Enemies Act, to justify deporting Venezuelan migrants to other countries, including El Salvador. Trump's decision to invoke the law relies on allegations that the Venezuelan government coordinates with the Tren de Aragua gang, but intelligence officials did not reach that conclusion. Congress has granted emergency powers to the presidency over the years, acknowledging that the executive branch can act more swiftly than lawmakers if there is a crisis. There are 150 legal powers — including waiving a wide variety of actions that Congress has broadly prohibited — that can only be accessed after declaring an emergency. In an emergency, for example, an administration can suspend environmental regulations, approve new drugs or therapeutics, take over the transportation system, or even override bans on testing biological or chemical weapons on human subjects, according to a list compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice. Democrats and Republicans have pushed the boundaries over the years. For example, in an attempt to cancel federal student loan debt, Joe Biden used a post-Sept. 11 law that empowered education secretaries to reduce or eliminate such obligations during a national emergency. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually rejected his effort, forcing Biden to find different avenues to chip away at his goals. Before that, Bush pursued warrantless domestic wiretapping and Franklin D. 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'We believe — and we're right — that we are in an emergency,' Vance said last week in an interview with Newsmax. 'You have seen foreign governments, sometimes our adversaries, threaten the American people with the loss of critical supplies,' Vance said. 'I'm not talking about toys, plastic toys. I'm talking about pharmaceutical ingredients. I'm talking about the critical pieces of the manufacturing supply chain.' Vance continued, 'These governments are threatening to cut us off from that stuff, that is by definition, a national emergency.' Republican and Democratic lawmakers have tried to rein in a president's emergency powers. Two years ago, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced legislation that would have ended a presidentially-declared emergency after 30 days unless Congress votes to keep it in place. It failed to advance. Similar legislation hasn't been introduced since Trump's return to office. 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42 minutes ago
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A timeline of the twists and turns in the Trump-Musk relationship
The escalating war of words this week between President Donald Trump and tech mogul Elon Musk marked the most contentious chapter in a yearslong and at-times rocky relationship between two of the most influential figures in business and politics. Musk, a former Democrat, has criticized Trump in the past, but over the past year forged a strong relationship with the president that positioned him to wield significant power in the early months of Trump's second administration. Those close ties, though, came after years of ups and downs stretching back to 2016 when Musk accepted a spot on several of Trump's business advisory councils. Here are some of the highlights of Trump and Musk's volatile relationship from the past few years. Musk, who would ultimately emerge as one of the most loyal contributors to Trump's 2024 campaign, was initially a vocal opponent. Despite a solid working relationship with Trump during his first term, the enigmatic tech leader called on Trump to skip the 2024 race. "I don't hate the man, but it's time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset," Musk wrote on X. "Trump would be 82 at end of term, which is too old to be chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America." The post was not without provocation — Trump days earlier at a campaign rally in Alaska bashed Musk for his effort to purchase X, then known as Twitter, and for saying in an interview that he never voted for a Republican. "He told me he voted for me," Trump said at the rally. "He's another bulls--- artist." Musk in response threw his support behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. "If DeSantis runs against Biden in 2024, then DeSantis will easily win — he doesn't even need to campaign," he wrote on X. Weeks after officially taking control of X, Musk extended an olive branch to Trump by reinstating his account on the social media platform — once his favorite online megaphone — after it was banned following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Musk reinstated the account on Nov. 19, four days after Trump formally launched his 2024 campaign. By the summer of 2023, Trump had been indicted in three separate criminal cases. Musk, who months earlier predicted Trump would win the 2024 election if arrested, condemned the prosecutions. "I did not vote for him last election, but such aggressive legal action against a former president is not right," Musk wrote. The post served as a shift for Musk, who soon after began posting more sympathetic messages about Trump. In the first few months of 2024, Trump's campaign found itself in a cash crunch after allocating upwards of $50 million toward his legal defense. So when Trump met with Musk alongside several other wealthy Republican donors in Palm Beach, Florida, most political observers were quick to connect the dots. Musk, the world's richest man, has insisted that the meeting was unplanned and maintains that Trump never explicitly requested funding. 'I'm not paying his legal bills in any way, shape or form … and he did not ask me for money,' Musk said in an interview after the meeting, though he did say afterward that he was at least "leaning away" from President Joe Biden. When asked about their meeting, Trump said he'd "helped" Musk in the past, without providing details. According to campaign finance documents, Musk created America PAC, a pro-Trump Super PAC, on May 22. Soon after, reports emerged that Trump and Musk had discussed a possible advisory role for the Tesla CEO in a second Trump administration, an effort to ensure Musk would hold a key position in the White House. Less than an hour after an assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania, Musk officially threw his support behind Trump's candidacy. "I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery," Musk wrote on X. Trump responded by touting reports that Musk planned to contribute $45 million a month to his re-election effort and promising to make life "good" for him. "We have to make life good for our smart people. You know, we have some smart people. We have to make life good for our smart people, and he's as smart as you get," Trump said at his first campaign event after the assassination attempt. In an event billed by Trump's campaign as "the interview of the century," Trump joined Musk for an online rally on X. The event was repeatedly delayed due to tech issues, but saw the pair bond over their shared disdain for Biden's immigration policies. It also saw Musk unsuccessfully try to prod Trump into prioritizing renewable energy over fossil fuels. When Trump returned to the site of the first assassination attempt against him, he shared the rally stage with Musk, who accused Democrats of seeking to take away voters' freedom of speech and right to bear arms. Musk emphatically encouraged Trump supporters to "vote, vote, vote." By October, Musk had already given nearly $75 million to the super PAC he created to support Trump, according to campaign finance filings. That money was used in part to fund sprawling get-out-the-vote drives in battleground states, including door-knocking programs in deep-red, traditionally low-turnout areas. Trump's striking victory, in which he won all seven battleground states and the popular vote for the first time, came as Musk's spending for the effort surpassed a quarter billion dollars, according to campaign finance reports. Of that total, $120 million came in the final weeks of the race. In his election night speech, Trump praised Musk, saying, "A star is born." One week after the election, Trump appointed Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head up a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, fulfilling a campaign promise to allow Musk to oversee cuts to government spending. Ramaswamy later left to pursue a gubernatorial bid in Ohio. Toward the end of the month, Trump traveled to Texas to watch the launch of Musk's SpaceX Starship rocket, despite previously ridiculing the company. Musk spoke at Trump's inauguration rally at Capital One Arena, emphatically lauding Trump's victory, jubilantly raising the prospect of taking DOGE to Mars and thanking the crowd for voting to guarantee "the future of civilization is assured." "My heart goes out to you," Musk said before forcefully touching his heart and raising his hand in a gesture some critics likened to a Nazi salute. Musk has denied that assertion. Among the first executive orders Trump signed on Jan. 20 was one that formalized the creation of the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency. The White House officially announced Musk's role in early February, clearing way for him to oversee a wide-ranging effort to reduce to the size of the federal government through mass job cuts, the cancellation of research programs and grants and the dismantling a federal agencies. In an early sign of tensions between Musk and several Cabinet members, Trump placed limits on his adviser, making clear in a Truth Social post that staffing decisions across the federal government will be determined by agency heads, not Musk. The Tesla CEO had been exercising authority over rank-and-file federal workers, including a threat to fire them if they didn't respond to inquiries regarding their work output. The new publicly established guardrails appeared to do little to hurt the pair's relationship, with Trump a week later turning the South Lawn of the White House into a Tesla show room to demonstrate support for Musk amid slumping sales for his electric vehicle company. On the first day of May, Musk told reporters at the White House that he would soon step back from DOGE to focus on his companies, comparing the shift to going from full-time to part-time work. The announcement came after Tesla reported a drop in its first-quarter profit and revenue. By the end of the month, Musk's exit was formalized. The White House on May 28 confirmed that Musk's tenure as a special government employee, a temporary role that he soon would legally have to exit anyway, had come to an end. Musk thanked Trump "for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending," and the president at a news conference with Musk days later said, "Elon's service to America has been without comparison in modern history." Trump presented Musk with a gold-colored key at the event. But underneath the polite exchanges hid simmering tension: Musk days earlier appeared on CBS' "Sunday Morning" and bashed a massive Republican bill, designed to fund much of Trump's domestic agenda, by condemning the expected impact of the legislation on the national debt. Trump soon after pulled the nomination of billionaire Jared Isaacman, an associate of Musk, to be NASA administrator. Days after formally departing the White House, Musk launched a scathing attack on the Trump-backed bill making its way through Congress. 'I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore,' Musk wrote in a post on X. 'This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.' Asked about those criticisms, Trump expressed disappointment. "Elon knew the inner workings of this bill,' Trump told reporters, before suggesting Musk's opposition to the bill was personal. 'Elon is upset because we took the EV mandate which was a lot of money for electric vehicles. They're having a hard time the electric vehicles, and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy," Trump said. The attacks quickly grew more personal. Musk called out Trump's "ingratitude," arguing that Republicans would have lost the 2024 election without his support. Trump in response said Musk "went crazy" after being asked to leave his White House role, and he toyed with the idea of severing government ties with Musk's companies. Musk replied by claiming Trump was in what are known as "the Epstein Files," and said Trump's tariff policy would cause a recession. He also amplified a post calling for Trump to be impeached and replaced by Vice President JD Vance. A day after the barrage of attacks, Trump told reporters he's no longer thinking of Musk. "Honestly, I've been so busy working on China, working on Russia, working on Iran, working on so many — I'm not thinking about Elon. You know, I just wish him well," he said. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Will a ‘No Kings' anti-Trump protest take place in Tri-Cities next week?
Dozens of protests are scheduled across the country on June 14 to coincide with a pricey military parade in Washington, D.C. The 'No Kings Day' protests will take place on Donald Trump's birthday as he throws a military parade with an estimated cost of $25 to $40 million, according to Politico. The protests against Trump are part of a national movement that has been gathering steam since his January 20 inauguration. 'This is bigger than political disagreement,' notes a statement by organizers on their No Kings toolkit page. 'They've defied our courts, deported American citizens, disappeared people off the streets, and slashed our services—all while orchestrating a massive giveaway to their billionaire allies.' The June 14 military parade has been framed as a celebration of the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary of its founding. It is also Trump's 79th birthday. A festival at the National Mall will follow. Flights into Washington, D.C. will be halted during the event, according to multiple media reports. There have been multiple other events and celebrations for the Army so far this year, but nothing is advertised beyond June 14. Reactions to the parade have been very mixed, with some criticizing the optics, given the timing with Trump's birthday. 'Prior presidents have used military regalia to celebrate or mark other moments,' noted historian Joshua Zeitz, contributing editor at Politico Magazine in an interview with NPR. 'There are obviously military ceremonies that happen, for instance, at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day. There's a military presence at inaugurations. But that's very different from what we're doing here. This is something that you would expect to see in countries like North Korea or the old Soviet Union or today's Russia.' The 'No Kings' event that is also on June 14 is a direct response to the parade in D.C. Organized by grassroots organizations Indivisible, 50501 and Stand Up America, there are about 1,500 protest rallies planned across the U.S. 'Join us to reject Trump's authoritarian vision and to show the wanna-be king what democracy looks like,' note Indivisible organizers on their website. There is no telling how many people will attend, but similar anti-Trump protests on April 19 under the 5051 banner drew 3 million people by Newsweek's estimate. Washington state has over six dozen No Kings protests scheduled for June 14. You can search locations in this interactive map. Here are the protest locations in Tri-Cities and eastern Washington at large: Tri-Cities No Kings protest 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., at 1321 N. Columbia Center Blvd., Kennewick So far this term, other protests against Trump and his actions have yielded crowds of over 1,000 in Tri-Cities. Other eastern Washington locations: Walla Walla No Kings Protest Clarkston No Kings Protest Pullman No Kings Protest Yakima No Kings Protest Spokane No Kings Protest Ellensburg No Kings Protest Moses Lake No Kings Protest
