Veteran comedian and actor Jimmie Walker — who rose to fame as the iconic "Kid Dy-no-mite!" on the '70s sitcom "Good Times" — said he supports "probably 90 percent of the things" that Republican President Donald Trump does.
In an interview with Fox News while he was shooting an upcoming episode of “Battle of the Network Stars," Walker also told the cable news giant he considers himself "a logical independent" and finds himself on the outside politically within the entertainment community.
“There's not one positive Trump joke out here,” he told Fox News. “No president has been attacked in recent years — because you couldn't attack [Barack] Obama because he was black. … But Trump, they have come out guns blazing against him, but even though I don't like everything he does, why, heck, darn it, I think he deserves some sort of praise. … But you can't say that in Hollywood."
Walker also elaborated, saying, "I'm not against Trump, but he makes mistakes, too."
Given that he came up through the comedy ranks in an age when saying offensive things and exploring offensive subjects generally didn't get entertainers in trouble, Walker bemoaned the increasingly militant reactions of the politically correct crowd.
"I think … anything that anybody says really is scrutinized," he told the network. "It's nothing personal! Everybody takes everything so hard! I think that's really what the problem is. Everybody is too sensitive."
Walker used "Real Time" host Bill Maher's controversial utterance of the N-word on his June 2 show as an example.
“It was a joke!” Walker declared to Fox News. “Come on, people! I love Bill Maher … even though Bill Maher has not put me on his show in about 10 years … Bill Maher is not a racist … calm down."
He told the network that fellow comic Kathy Griffin shouldn't have blamed being a female for issues she's experienced since the huge backlash over her posing with a fake severed head made to appear like Trump's — but he does feel bad for her given "how hard she's worked to get where she's gotten."
“I hate to see that she goes down like this because in Hollywood, I've said this a million times … comedy is a left-wing affair,” Walker told Fox News. “There is no right-wing comedy."
So what other presidents does Walker like besides Trump?
"Reagan I think was a very good president … [but] my favorite president has always been Franklin Delano Roosevelt," he told the network. "Many of my good friends on the right still hate him for Social Security, but I think it's still a thing that really works well."
Walker also told Fox News he liked "Ike” — President Dwight Eisenhower — for creating auto-industry jobs and getting freeways built.
Here's Walker in a different interview discussing race, culture and entertainment:
(H/T: BizPac Review)
