President Donald Trump ripped Hollywood elites during his rally in Dallas, Texas, Thursday night, mocking the “stupid” people running the Oscars and declaring that its viewership has fallen off a cliff because “they came after us.”
Trump held a Keep America Great Again rally at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, and ripped elites in both the media and Hollywood, spurring cheers across the lively arena of supporters.
“Don’t worry. I won’t say anything bad about your network,” Trump said as he pointed to the cameras. “Because a lot of the times, I get ready to do a number on these phony networks and you know, you see those red lights go off off off off. They don’t want their viewers to see it. But that’s OK I’m not going to say it tonight. I’m going to say, ‘You’re legitimate media.’”
“I don’t actually mean that,” Trump added, drawing chuckles from the crowd.
“But look at all those cameras. That’s like the Academy Awards used to be before it failed. You know why it failed? You know why it failed?” Trump asked his supporters.
“Because they came after us. That’s why it failed. It failed because they had stupid people saying horrible things about us. Stupid, stupid people,” Trump continued, noting that their ratings have “dropped like a rock” — something he loves seeing.
“They are stupid people, and their ratings have dropped like a rock and I love seeing it, I’m telling you. Love it,” Trump said. “But no matter how hard they try, they will fail because the people of Texas and the people of America will never surrender our freedom to those people right there.”
The Oscars has been plagued by left-wing activists and progressive talking points in recent years. Actors and actresses lectured viewers on immigration, racism, the Supreme Court, and feminism during the 2019 Academy Awards.
Ratings tanked in 2018, earning a 6.8 rating with 26.5 million viewers– a “historic” low.
As Breitbart News’s John Nolte detailed:
On top of insulting Trump voters, this Oscar telecast also promised to be a lecture in favor of gun control (by elitists protected by hundreds of armed guards) and against sexual harassment (by elitists who are either harassers or enablers). As the early ratings show, even Democrats were not interested in watching that kind of self-serving hypocrisy.
If Sunday night’s telecast signaled anything, though, it is that Hollywood is going the same way as the mainstream media. With their ratings and credibility gone, and knowing they have lose Middle America forever, both institutions are blatantly and belligerently moving to the far left in the hopes of at least holding on to that base of support.
The Academy experienced a slight uptick the following year with a 7.7 rating among adults 18-49 and 29.6 million total viewers, according to Variety.
This is far from the first time the president has taken aim at Hollywood.
“You know, the Academy Awards is on hard times now. You know that,” Trump said during a speech at the Shell Petrochemicals Complex in Monaco, Pennsylvania, in August. “Nobody wants to watch it. You know, why? Because they started taking us on. Everyone got tired of it.”