Jane Fonda unpacked Donald Trump’s trauma in a new podcast interview, saying she imagines conversations with the president while she lies in bed.
The award-winning actress and activist, 88, spoke with Vox Media’s Kara Swisher about the state of American politics, harnessing anger for good, and what has shaped Trump’s psyche. Swisher asked Fonda, a longtime human rights advocate and political beacon, what she would say to Trump if given the opportunity.
“Do you think you can change his mind?” Swisher asked.
Fonda says she has known Trump for a while, and that the current president used to “really like and admire” her ex-husband, media mogul and CNN founder Ted Turner. Fonda says Turner, whom she was married to for a decade, and Trump have a lot in common, including “early trauma at the hands of the father.”
The actress said that when she “lies in bed,” she sometimes envisions talking to Trump.
“I would try to touch his heart. It’s important to understand what he does and what he says. The behavior is the language of the traumatized,” she explained.
“And you have to see through it. You can hate the behavior, but you have to see through it to the traumatized person and not hate them. Because if you hate them, then it brings you down,” Fonda continued.
The Oscar-winning actress added that “all these guys,” naming the likes of Elon Musk, are “not well.”
“I’m so sorry that this happened to them in their lives. And I would try to touch that early Trump. But I don’t think I’d succeed,” she clarified.
Fonda also touched on how much needs to be done before the next election, stressing the fact that “the president is already telling us that he’s prepared to mess with the midterms.”
“Exercise democracy,” she urged.
“We have to get back to the organizing. You know, Mamdani’s big success was because he talked to people. He listened. It was local. And I think that that needs to happen again,” she said of New York’s new mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“Get ready. Understand authoritarianism and how it can be defeated. And learn how to be safe,” she continued. “Develop a community that can help each other.”
Fonda has never minced words about Trump’s words and actions. Last year, she used her Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement award speech to urge Americans to resist amid the horrors of the current administration.
“We must not isolate. We must stay in community. We must help the vulnerable,” she said in an impassioned monologue.
Just last month, speaking about the murders of civilians by federal agents, she told Stephen Colbert that “Authoritarianism has made its way into every single nook and cranny of our government.”
Fonda has also revived the Committee for the First Amendment, a McCarthy-era initiative, which included her father, Henry Fonda, as an early member. The newly-ignited committee, created in defense of “our constitutional rights,” garnered the support of over 550 celebrities.
In her letter to obtain support, Fonda wrote, ”The only thing that has ever worked—time and time again—is solidarity: binding together, finding bravery in numbers too big to ignore, and standing up for one another."
