Sean Penn now has something in common with President Donald Trump: They’ve both been manipulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Watch the video below.)
On Thursday, the “One Battle After Another” actor told Jimmy Kimmel about his dinner with the leader in 2001 when he and Jack Nicholson accompanied “The Pledge” to the Moscow Film Festival. Kimmel had produced a photo of the two stars at a table with the Russian leader.
Penn, who directed the movie, said the encounter with Putin was “two to three weeks after then-President [George W.] Bush said, ‘I looked into his eyes and I felt I could trust him.’ And I have to say, when I say that, I was conned also. I felt that there was something genuine there.”
Pivoting to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Oscar winner added: “Now we know that he’s very willing to kidnap 30,000 kids, murder a lot of people … and teach those kids to hate their parents and their country.”
“And yet our country isn’t together enough to realize we should give [Ukraine] the resources to defeat [Putin],” Penn told Kimmel.
Fast-forward to 1:38 for Penn’s Moscow memory:
Trump has basically admitted to being fooled by Putin’s friendliness as he has sought to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.
“I speak to him a lot about getting this thing done, and I always hang up and say, well, that was a nice phone call, and then missiles launched into Kyiv or some other city,” Trump said.
The president said many of his predecessors, including the younger Bush, have fallen for Putin’s act, but Trump insisted he had not.
At their much-hyped summit in Alaska, Putin was said to have used the meeting as a photo op to bolster his war effort.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said Trump was suckered by his Russian counterpart.
“Putin got a meeting on U.S. soil, Trump got flattered by Putin. Advantage Putin. Shameful,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Trump-set “peace” deadlines have reportedly come and gone on multiple occasions.
“It means that once again President Putin played President Trump,” French President Emmanuel Macron said recently.
