In The Know

Actor Jeff Daniels says he hopes voters will choose Biden amid ‘war on Democracy’ 

Jeff Daniels, a cast member in "A Man in Full," poses at the premiere of the Netflix miniseries at the Tudum Theatre, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Actor Jeff Daniels said he hopes the 2024 general election voters will ultimately choose President Biden amid what he called the ongoing “war on democracy.” 

The “The Newsroom” actor stated that former President Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, “talks down” to Midwestern residents and that those voters in the “middle” are “watching” the GOP “destroy itself.” 

“But we’re flyover country, and we’re always, we got a chip on our shoulder about that. And we get [it] – we’re not as stupid as people, like Trump in particular, think we are. He talks down to us. He talks past us. He lies to us. And but we get it,” Daniels said during his Friday appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” where he promoted his new Netflix drama “A Man in Full.”

Daniels said there are two “wars” going on, one in the Republican Party and the other for “democracy.” He hopes that voters in the “middle” will vote for Biden in November because the contest they want to get to is in 2028. 

“And I think that’s when the voters – and I would be – I’m cautiously optimistic that the people in the middle, the people in states like Michigan, are going to go, ‘you know what? We’re better than this,” Daniels said. 


“I’m going to vote for Biden, even though he’s old, which also translates into wise and wisdom, which we may need right now because the election I really want to vote on is the one in 2028, when people are now running with the future.’ All those folks,” he said.

Recent polling showed Trump leading Biden among registered voters in a hypothetical match-up — 49 percent and 43 percent, respectively, according to a CNN survey.