“You never want to criticize Trump, and you don’t want to criticize Fox [News]. You want to tell people things they don’t know,” Jane Fonda told POLITICO as she was joined by filmmaker Susan Lacey. | Reena Flores/POLITICO Women Rule podcast Why Jane Fonda doesn’t hate Donald Trump The famously political actress explains why ‘you have to have empathy’ for the president.

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Jane Fonda doesn’t hate President Donald Trump.


As the actress told POLITICO in the latest episode of the Women Rule podcast, “I hate what he stands for, what he does, what he says.”

But when it comes to who he is as a human being, Fonda urged Americans to express “radical kinship” for the president and his supporters.

“I feel that I understand a little bit — this is a man who was traumatized as a child by his father, who had a mother that didn’t protect him,” she said. “And the behavior is the language of the wounded.”

Since the start of Trump’s presidency and the advent of the #MeToo movement, a number of Hollywood stars have ramped up their political involvement. For some, like Robert De Niro, Kathy Griffin and comedian Michelle Wolf, their politics have even earned them condemnation from the White House.

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Fonda, no stranger to activist causes, offered some advice for celebrities in the current climate, drawing on her own experiences protesting the Vietnam War — and the public backlash she would receive for it.

“You never want to criticize Trump, and you don’t want to criticize Fox [News]. You want to tell people things they don’t know,” Fonda said on the podcast. “Just like what changed and saved my life was being told things I didn’t know by American soldiers. We have to reach out and listen and then respond in a way that’s meaningful.”

“You have to have empathy for him,” she added, speaking of Trump. “And I think that that has to also transfer to the people who voted for him. Some of them, you can’t possibly persuade otherwise because they’re white supremacists. You know, or they’re so far off the spectrum, for their own traumatic reasons, probably. But there’s a whole bunch of Trump voters who we have to open our hearts to and understand why they voted the way they did.”

Fonda still remains involved in several political causes, including fighting for pay equity and raising state and federal minimum wages. In Michigan, for example, Fonda has championed a ballot measure that would raise the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour.

“We’re really fighting because Michigan is a swing state,” she said. “Having one fair wage on the ballot encourages people to come to the ballot to vote themselves a raise.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Fonda — on a publicity tour for the new HBO documentary about her life, “Jane Fonda in Five Acts” (directed by “American Masters” creator Susan Lacy) — shot down any possibility that she herself would ever run for elected office.

“Never, no,” she said. “It’s important to know what your weaknesses are and what your strengths are. Being a politician would not play to my strengths, that’s for sure.”

Still, the actress-turned-activist, now 80, said she was keeping a close eye on women in politics today.

She ticked off a number of liberal politicians on her radar screen, including Rep. Barbara Lee of California and Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, and noted: “There’s a lot of really good young women coming up. I think it’s so great how the women are coming forward. This is our time.”

Lacy, the documentary filmmaker, also weighed in on female politicians and how they’re handling the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who has been accused of sexual assault.

“We are watching the Republican women senators very carefully to see whether they get some spine,” Lacy said.

To hear more about “Jane Fonda in Five Acts,” Susan Lacy’s documentary achievements and what Fonda has learned from examining her life in detail, listen to the full podcast here. Women Rule takes listeners backstage with female bosses for real talk on how they made it and what advice they have for women looking to lead.

