Oscar-winning actor and activist Sean Penn has made a terrifying prediction for the final act of the administration of President Donald Trump: If he goes, he’s taking the rest of us with him.
In a joint appearance on Jim Acosta’s Substack podcast, The Jim Acosta Show, alongside Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, the Mystic River star compared Trump to a jealous spouse who murders their partner—and said the president’s narcissism could manifest in global annihilation.
“I do think it’s a reasonable theory that Donald Trump is not unlike the spouse of someone who leaves him… who then murders their former partner because if they can’t have her, nobody can,” said Penn.
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That possessiveness, he warned, could extend to the planet: “Trump and his solipsism may have that relationship with the world… this destruction is in part a power play. And also a literal intention of his final out.”
Acosta asked whether Penn believed Trump might make good on his threats to try and retain power after his second term. “I think he might try to destroy the world before he ages out of life,” Penn replied.
Swalwell, a longtime Trump antagonist, added that dictators never plan for succession and that he is worried about the damage Trump might inflict if he feels cornered.
“If he doesn’t believe there’s somebody who can protect him,” Swalwell said, “you will see him ratchet up… what he’s willing to do to the country to protect himself.”
The trio had been discussing El Salvador’s authoritarian-leaning President Nayib Bukele, and the corporations and institutions enabling Trump’s return. Swalwell predicted a future “reckoning” as Trump’s approval rating slides while Penn jumped to worst-case scenarios.
Trump has been floating the idea of a third term for a while now, telling NBC News in March that he is “not joking” about it. In an interview with Fox News on Friday, Vice President JD Vance refused to rule out Trump’s third-term ambitions, despite repeated questioning.
Penn, who was a frequent visitor to Ukraine while working on his 2023 documentary about the Russian invasion, serves as executive producer on Words of War, a new biopic about the late Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. As he told Forbes, the film is a “five-alarm fire warning” for Americans about the dangers of authoritarianism and the importance of a free press. It’s a message he appears to be hammering home in this latest condemnation of Trump.
