Politics

George Takei Discusses One of Trump's Biggest Hypocrisies

January 17th 2017

George Takei and Donald Trump have history.

Years before he began calling out the president-elect on social media, the actor and progressive activist appeared on the fifth installment of the "Celebrity Apprentice" in 2012. In an exclusive interview for "Paying Attention with Matthew Segal," Takei revealed that he even shared lunch with the business mogul to discuss marriage equality.

Takei, who is gay, said that Trump seemed to express sincere curiosity about fight for equal marriage rights in New York, where same-sex marriage was illegal at the time. However, despite telling Takei he had recently attended a "beautiful" same-sex wedding, Trump still insisted that he only supported "traditional marriage" between a man and a woman.

Takei said he had to bite his tongue to not call out the obvious hypocrisy.

"Marriage equality is two people who love each other through thick and thin in sickness and in health," Takei said, noting the stark contrast between Trump's "traditional" stance, and his highly publicized affairs." It's love that defines marriage. We agreed to disagree on that."

As far as Takei is concerned, Trump cannot be trusted to protect the LGBT community, despite his public statements and tweets.

Takei sees Trump as deeply uninformed, and he fears democracy could "stumble" under his administration.

George Takei - Paying ATTN

The actor and progressive activist was sent with his family to live in an internment camp during World War II, one of 120,000 Japanese-Americans to have their civil rights stripped away by the United States government.

Takei said he fears the United States could repeat those sins of the past.

"It happened once and particularly in this climate now, it can happen to other people," Takei said, who recently also created a Broadway musical, "Allegiance" to highlight Japanese American internment. 

Trump has toyed with the idea of creating a registry for U.S. citizens who come from predominantly Muslim countries, and welcomed to his transition team Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who designed a precedent-setting registration system under the administration of George W. Bush.

Takei said Trump's plans come not from deeply held convictions, but from a lack of knowledge.

When asked by Segal how Trump could claim ignorance about the devastating impact of Japanese internment Takei answered, "Doesn’t that demonstrate how ill informed he is?"

Donald TrumpGage Skidmore / Flickr - flickr.com

So what should Americans who are fearful about the loss of their civil liberties under a Trump presidency do? According to Takei, understanding history is key.

He adds: "I hope that the people of the United States will be faithful to the fundamental noble principles of American democracy, and not allow it to be trampled over by uniformed, racist, and sexist policies."

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