While appearing as a guest on ABC’s The View program on Tuesday, actor/director Kevin Costner was asked by liberal co-host Joy Behar to share his thoughts on the practice of separating immigrant children from their parents after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. After stumbling for a moment, Costner replied: “I'm not recognizing America right now. I don't recognize its voice.”
That comment drew applause from the studio audience, and he then added: “We can be about more, and right now we're acting really small.”
The celebrity made the appearance to promote his new TV series, Yellowstone. Behar told the actor/director: “When we do ‘hot topics’ here, we talk a lot about what's going on in the world. I was wondering if you would like to talk about what's going on, that's gotten everybody upset, what's happening at the border with these kids. Your thoughts?”
That question apparently caught Costner off guard since he first replied that the situation “doesn't start with that either, but that's suddenly right between our eyes.”
He then stated: “You know, this is a hard thing to say. I'm not recognizing America right now. I don't recognize its voice.”
After the audience applauded that statement, the actor continued: “I feel people are going with the flow, and there's people right in the middle.”
He also noted:
We're in a really weird spot, and it takes a high level of compassion, empathy and intelligence to work our way out of this.
Separating people with no plan when those children can't even speak English -- can you imagine the terror besides just being separated?
“We have to do better,” Costner continued. “We've been about more. We can be about more, and right now we're acting really small.”
Behar obviously agreed with his statement because she responded: “Yep. Very good.”
According to an article written by Cameron Cawthorne, a media analyst for the Washington Free Beacon website, the guest “accused the Trump administration of fostering a harmful political environment.”
Cawthorne also noted that the actor “grew up in a Republican household and has shifted toward the Democratic Party.”
“This is not the first time that Costner has taken an apparent swipe at Trump,” the analyst continued. “In April 2016, Costner appeared to criticize Trump, saying that he did not think the presidential campaign was as ‘entertaining’ as everyone else.”
At the time, the actor then said:
I find it embarrassing. I find it highly immature. I think America is really teetering at a low point with the way we talk to each other.
I won't even have dinner with the way people talk. Where are our big ideas? There's dialogue right now that's shameful.
During an interview on the Huffington Post site in 2008, Costner stated: “I don’t prefer to be known as a conservative. I’m not a Republican. I basically was raised in a house that was a Republican house. My politics came [from] my kitchen table, listening to my parents.”
Nevertheless, “I thought the people that protested against the Vietnam War were unpatriotic because my brother was fighting over in Vietnam.”
“As I got time and distance, I realized it was just a difference of opinion, and their opinion wasn’t necessarily wrong,” he noted.
And these were not the only times Costner has flirted with liberal politicians. After the movie Thirteen Days was released in 2000, he was invited to a special showing of the film in Havana.
During that occasion, the actor met Fidel Castro to discuss the Cuban dictator’s “real-life role” in the actual Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, which was the basis for the movie.
"I shouldn't be speaking for [Castro], but he responded to the film very favorably, and we had a very interesting discussion afterwards," Costner's spokesman, Stephen Rivers, told Reuters at the time. "Kevin was very appreciative of the amount of time the president gave us."
Once again, the women on The View have decided not to let the facts get in the way of their opinions, and this time, they got the star of the Dances With Wolves movie to go along for the ride.
