Italian
Sylvester Stallone is the latest Hollywood figure to back President-elect Donald Trump, calling the 2024 election victor the “second George Washington” at an awards gala at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday night.
Stallone sang the praises of the incoming president at the America First Policy Institute Gala held in Palm Beach, comparing him to the titular character in his Oscar-winning film Rocky and Jesus Christ before Trump took to the stage. In publicly coming out as a supporter of Trump, the actor joined a short but growing list of celebrity supporters of the incoming president that includes Kelsey Grammer, Drea de Mateo and Jack Paul, among others. A majority of Hollywood players backed the truncated campaign of his rival, Democrat Kamala Harris. Her campaign relied on several stars as endorsers and entertainment at rallies and enlisted them in the vice president’s ground game in battleground states.
“We’re in the presence of a really mythical character,” Stallone told the crowd at Mar-a-Lago. “I love mythology. And this individual does not exist on this planet. Nobody in the world could have pulled off what he pulled off, so I’m in awe.”
Stallone then compared Trump to one of the founding fathers of the United States, drawing a comparison between the intentions and results of the two men who have led the country and indicated that both were crucial to the world as we know it.
“When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was gonna change the world,” the 78-year-old actor said. ”Because without him, you could imagine what the world would look like. Guess what? We got the second George Washington.”
Stallone’s Trump-Jesus comparison came earlier as he evoked the first few seconds of Rocky, which opens with a shot of a portrait of the Son of God, as he is named in the New Testament, that pans over to the title character being pummeled with blows in a boxing ring as he vehemently fights back.
“At that moment, he was a chosen person and that’s how I began the journey — something was gonna happen, this man was gonna go through a metamorphosis and change lives, just like President Trump,” the star of the Paramount+ crime series Tulsa King said.
Trump soon arrived on stage and he and the action star shared an extended handshake.
The America First Policy Institute Gala is an annual event that, since 2021 when the far-right think-tank was founded, has raised funds to support Trump’s political agenda. The nonprofit has been described as the president-elect’s “White House in waiting” and has compiled an agenda akin to the Heritage Institute’s controversial Project 2025, which proposes policy moves including imposing tariffs on imports, reducing corporate taxes, protecting religious freedom, and reversing climate change initiatives.
