Flea: Donald Trump Is ‘Silly Reality-Show Bozo’
Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist and Bernie Sanders supporter Flea was watching a recent Republican presidential debate when he was struck by what he saw as a common thread among the candidates.
“All they talked about was who could kill the most people the most efficiently. It’s disgusting and cold and mean because literally all they talk about is, ‘I can kill ISIS,’ and it’s just not the way,” the musician tells Rolling Stone. “ISIS are evil creeps who are disgusting and need to be stopped, but [the candidates] just play right into their hands by alienating. All I hear is racism and ‘Build up the military industrial complex’ and ‘Give people guns.’ I don’t understand the obsession with death and violence and killing. It doesn’t add up for me.”
Speaking to Rolling Stone one day after the Iowa caucus for an upcoming op-ed on Sanders, the outspoken bassist has sharp words for Republican frontrunners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
“I can’t take Donald Trump or anything he says seriously,” he says. “I just think that he’s a silly reality-show bozo and blustering guy who likes getting attention. I don’t think he wants to be president, and I don’t think he has a chance to be the president. He’s just some egotistical, silly person whose main concern in life is getting a blowjob. He wants to be on TV and he wants everyone to thinks he’s important.”
For Flea, Trump’s controversial statements on immigration and terrorism are more “silly theatre” than bold provocations. “I don’t think he even believes what he says,” Flea says. “He’s just a product of, if you yell loud enough and bluster around enough, people are going to pay attention to you. He works the media and they love it. I’m hesitant to even discuss it because I just find it all to be really trivial.
“This guy literally has never said a single thing about anything that actually affects an issue that has anything to do with anyone in America’s reality,” adds the musician. “He’s never said anything like he is going to help working class people or poor people. I guess he can help rich people get tax breaks. He’s a real-estate bozo who was born rich and has parlayed it from being a money-scammer guy.”
Trump wasn’t the only Republican to earn the ire of the 53-year-old musician, who chastised Ted Cruz, the winner of Monday night’s caucus. “Ted Cruz is a selfish, mean-spirited man. He’s taking millions of dollars from companies like Goldman Sachs and all these corporations and those are the people who are going to tell him what to do if he gets in office,” says Flea. “The NRA and big financial institutions are going to tell him what to do, and he’s going to do what they say because they’re the ones that own him.”
As Red Hot Chili Peppers continue to work on their forthcoming 11th studio album, the band will headline a Sanders fundraiser on Friday, February 5th in Los Angeles. Last September, all four members signed a letter of endorsement posted on the senator’s website. “Bernie Sanders is the only remotely reasonable candidate for President of the United States,” Flea tweeted the previous month.