Josh Brolin Reflects On Previous Friendship With Trump: “There Is No Greater Genius Than Him In Marketing”

Josh Brolin reflected on his previous friendship with Donald Trump — back when the POTUS was a real estate mogul based in New York City. Calling him a “genius” in marketing, the Oscar-nominated Milk actor said he knew a “different guy” than the figure the GOP leader cuts today.

In a sprawling interview with The Independent promoting Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, Brolin said he didn’t base his character, the megalomaniacal Monsignor Wicks who leads a local church, off of the president.

“I could make something up and say it was rooted in a kind of Trumpian greed,” he noted.

Of his past acquaintanceship, he said, “I’m not scared of Trump, because even though he says he’s staying forever, it’s just not going to happen. And if it does, then I’ll deal with that moment. But having been a friend of Trump before he was president, I know a different guy.”

He continued, discussing the Trump Hotel: “I’m sure there was a lot of corruption involved,” he remarked, adding that he found “interesting” the idea of building a high-rise “in the middle of a cesspool city during the late ’70s … now it’s power unmitigated, it’s unregulated.”

The No Country for Old Men alum concluded: “There is no greater genius than him in marketing – he takes the weakness of the general population and fills it. And that’s why I think a lot of people feel that they have a mascot in him. I think it’s much less about Trump than it is about the general population and their need for validation.”

Brolin has been forthcoming about having been friends with Trump, whom he first met after filming Oliver Stone’s Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps in 2010. While speaking with journalist Graham Bensinger last year, the Weapons star described that initial dinner — which also featured Stone, co-star Shia LaBeouf and First Lady-to-be Melania Trump — as leading to the “weirdest fucking moment” in which the tycoon ignored his three separate asks to tour the upstairs of his Manhattan apartment.

In later years, during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2016, Brolin emphasized he “was” buddies with Trump, echoing current sentiments by characterizing the reality star-turned-politician as having “singlehandedly turned around the economy of Manhattan. I found that very fascinating. I think he’s an interesting guy.”

And, in 2020, Brolin shared an Instagram missive — in which he described himself as a “conservative Democrat” — speaking out against Trump ahead of that year’s presidential election, saying, “I refuse to believe that Donald Trump is our core version of American masculinity.”