Director Oliver Stone spoke out in the defense of former President Donald Trump over the multiple criminal trials he is up against.
In a conversation with Variety, Stone, despite being an outspoken critic of Trump, compared the legal battles Trump is going through with those faced by other world leaders.
“The charges on both sides of the Trump-Biden election are pretty wild,” Stone told the outlet.
“It’s a new form of warfare. It’s called lawfare. And that’s what they’re using against Trump.”
Trump is now citing Oliver Stone saying this case should be dismissed. I think Stone also had Ted Cruz’s father involved in the JFK assassination so everything comes full circle in this case. pic.twitter.com/lLhlWcKILe
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) May 21, 2024
He said that there are “interesting parallels in the United States and the rest of the world, where “you’re seeing this kind of behavior.”
According to Axios, since 2000, lawmakers who have left office have been prosecuted in 78 countries.
Stone was likely referring to Lula da Silva, Brazil’s far-left president, who returned to power in January 2023, when his corruption conviction was thrown out. Silva is the focus of the director’s upcoming documentary, “Lula.”
“[Trump’s] got four trials and some of these charges, whether you’re for him or against him, they are minor,” he remarked.
He went on to suggest that the U.S. should reform its election and political systems to resemble those in Europe, allowing for a greater variety of political parties rather than just the two major ones clashing constantly.
“If you’re a poor man or a middle-class man it’s very hard to run for office in the United States, unless you have money and corporate sponsors,” Stone noted.
He said that “money controls politics” in America, which is not the case in European countries, where their election process is “very mandated.”
“The British elections are very low cost, or they used to be until recently. In France, they have election rules,” he explained. “And we need that in the United States. Let’s get the money out of the politics.”
“Look at the [two] parties,” he reiterated. “We should be multi-party and we should have public money in politics like they do in Poland. Or look at the English and the French models.”
Meanwhile, “Jersey Shore” star Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino said that he became acquainted with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s star witness in Trump’s hush money trial, lawyer Michael Cohen, during his time in a federal correctional facility.
Sorrentino pleaded guilty to tax evasion and served an eight month prison sentence in 2019, which overlapped with Cohen’s stint in federal prison for campaign-finance violations, along with tax and bank fraud.
The “Jersey Shore” star ate with Cohen daily while doing time at Federal Correctional Institution, Otisville, which he noted was a “regular prison” for “high-profile inmates.”
During an interview with “Jackass” star Steve-O on his podcast “Steve-O’s Wild Ride!” the titular host mentioned some of Sorrentino’s notable fellow inmates.
“Okay, so you’re in Otisville prison … with Donald Trump’s former fixer, attorney Michael Cohen,” he prodded.
“Yes, I was!” Sorrentino commented. “He sat next to me every day for lunch.”
“Is he just a really likeable guy?” Steve-O wondered about Cohen, who admitted to stealing from the Trump organization when he took the stand last week.
“He was very nice to me, he was very nice to me. I don’t necessarily … I mean everyone has different values and things like that, but he was very nice to me. I think he’s a pretty fascinating character,” he said about the disgraced lawyer.
Since his release, Sorrentino said that he has seen headlines about Cohen but has mostly chosen to avoid clicking on them.
“I see what’s happening in the news right now, and I’m like, okay, I’m gonna keep scrolling, right,” he remarked.
Another Hollywood icon, “West Wing” showrunner Aaron Sorkin, revealed he is working on a film focusing on Facebook’s role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Sorkin hinted at the project while discussing the role social media companies play in moderating news during a podcast interview on “The Town with Matthew Belloni.”
Aaron Sorkin confirms he’s writing another Facebook movie 14 years after ‘THE SOCIAL NETWORK’🎥
It would focus on how the algorithm promotes the most divisive material possible saying “I blame Facebook for January 6.”
(Via: @variety) pic.twitter.com/Zjpxmwr4kq
— CinemaBums (@Cinema_Bums) April 26, 2024
“Look, yeah, I’ll be writing about this,” Sorkin stated. “I blame Facebook for January 6. I do.”
When asked to elaborate, he retorted, “You’re going to need to buy a movie ticket.”
“Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm and tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible, because that is what will increase engagement,” he explained about the company’s behind the scenes operations.
“That is what will get you to what they call inside the hallways of Facebook ‘the infinite scroll.’”
Sorkin said that Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is behind the algorithm.
“You think if Mark Zuckerberg stopped it tomorrow then all the problems of this country would go away?” Belloni questioned.
“There’s supposed to be a constant tension at Facebook between growth and integrity. There isn’t. There’s just growth,” Sorkin criticized.