One of Donald Trump’s insult-loving press aides lashed out at actor Mark Ruffalo after he blasted the president as a “pedophile” and “the worst human being.”
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung—seen as the architect of Team Trump’s childish and combative media tactics—took aim at the frequent Trump critic over comments Ruffalo made on the Golden Globes red carpet.
“Poor thing Mark Ruffalo, star of She-Hulk, is one of the worst actors in the business. More impressively, he’s an even worse human being by spewing outright lies because deep down inside, he hates himself for knowingly subjecting the public to his god-awful performance,” Cheung posted on X.
Speaking to USA Today, the four-time Oscar nominee discussed the “Be Good” pin he and several other celebrities wore on Sunday in tribute to 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis—an incident in which Ruffalo described the mother-of-three as being “murdered.”
“We have a vice president who is lying about what’s happening. We’re in the middle of a war with Venezuela that we illegally invaded. He’s [Trump] telling the world that international law doesn’t matter to him, the only thing that matters to him is his own morality,” Ruffalo said.
“But the guy is a convicted felon or convicted rapist. He’s a pedophile. He’s the worst human being. If we’re relying on this guy’s morality for the most powerful country in the world, then we’re all in a lot of trouble.”
Trump was found liable for sexually abusing former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s at a 2023 civil trial, but he was not criminally convicted of rape. The president—who has faced ongoing criticism over the slow release of the Jeffrey Epstein files—has also never been convicted of child sex crimes.
Ruffalo, who was nominated for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Series—Drama at the Golden Globes for his role in Task but lost to Noah Wyle for The Pitt, went on to explain why he believes it is necessary for celebrities to use their platforms to speak out against the Trump administration.
“I want to be here to celebrate, and I am here to celebrate, and I’m proud to have a Golden Globe nomination,” he said. “But this is not normal anymore, and I don’t know how I could be quiet. I’m feeling a little sick, so it’s hard to BS right now.”
Cheung has made a name for himself through an aggressive trolling approach to media engagement and for routinely using social media to attack critics of the president.
This includes suggesting The Daily Beast “must be f---ing blind or stupid” for reporting that the 79-year-old president appeared to struggle to walk in a straight line after disembarking from Air Force One in September 2024.
Cheung has also repeatedly targeted author Michael Wolff, a frequent guest on The Daily Beast podcasts and co-host of Inside Trump’s Head, calling him a “lying sack of s--t who has been proven to be a fraud,” and claiming he suffers from a “severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Ruffalo’s team for comment.
