With less than two months to spare, Zachary Levi is making his political allegiance clear ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“I’m not gonna take too much time, but I did just wanna just give you a little context about why Shazam is sitting here talking to you about these various things,” he prefaced. “I grew up in my family that was Christian conservative, that was pretty much the lane that we were in. My parents were Kennedy Democrats that then turned into Reagan Republicans, and they taught me to have a healthy level of distrust for the government and a healthy level of distrust for industry that runs amok.
“And for a long time, I was like, ‘Man, I really want to find a politician that represents all of the things that I want and I want to see in a presidential candidate.’ And this year, I found Bobby Kennedy, and I thought, ‘Man, this guy is it. He’s the real deal.’ And in a perfect world, whatever that would look like, perhaps I would have voted for Bobby. But we don’t live in a perfect world. In fact, we live in a very broken one, we live in a country that has been hijacked by a lot of people who want to take this place way off the cliff. And we want to stop that, right?”
Levi continued, “We’re here to make sure that we are going to take back this country, we are going to make it great again, we are going to make it healthy again. And so, I stand with Bobby, and I stand with Tulsi, and I stand with everyone else who is standing with President Trump. Because I do believe, of the two choices that we have, and we only have two, Donald Trump, President Trump is the man that can get us there. And he’s gonna get us there because he’s gonna have the backing and the support and the wisdom and the knowledge and the fight that exists in Robert Kennedy Jr. and former representative Tulsi Gabbard.”
RFK Jr. suspended his campaign last month, endorsing Trump and running mate JD Vance.
If the 2024 presidential election is decided by A-list endorsers, then Donald Trump might want to start writing his concession speech now. A rundown of celebrities who’ve publicly chosen a candidate reads like the front row of the Oscars when it comes to support for Democratic nominee and current vice president Kamala Harris. Meanwhile, Trump’s biggest (so far) Hollywood supporter announced himself on Saturday, but even that endorsement felt lukewarm and hollow.
Zachary Levi’s politics have threatened to overshadow his work as an actor for years, given his apparent skepticism of life-saving vaccines, his criticism of the SAG-AFTRA strike, and his loud and proud support of credibly accused sexual assailant (among other issues) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Meanwhile, his most recent turn as DC superhero Shazam was a massive bomb at the box office, a failure Levi appeared to blame on fellow DC hero Dwayne Johnson and the studio’s marketing team.
When RFK, Jr.—who Levi described as “the best we’ve had in a long time”—bowed out of the presidential race, the Chuck actor clearly found himself at a crossroads. In 2020, for example, he tweeted, “I am no fan or supporter of Trump, and I find his behavior to be vulgar, callous, narcissistic, and lacking empathy.”
But in a time when JD Vance can call Donald Trump “America’s Hitler” and then become his vice-presidential pick, all bets are apparently off. And with RFK, Jr. out of the race, Levi joined (checks notes) Roseanne Barr, Hulk Hogan, and fellow-flop-starring Jon Voight in supporting the convicted fraudster.
But unlike those other supporters, Levi’s endorsement was half-hearted, at best. Issued while hosting a Saturday event featuring RFK, Jr and former U.S. rep Tulsi Gabbard, it was hardly a full-throated embrace.
Video from the event, a Dearborn, Michigan rally billed as part of “Team Trump’s Reclaim America Tour,” tells the tale. Jokingly referring to himself as “Shazam,” Levi said, “For a long time, I was like, ‘Man, I really want to find a politician that represents all of the things that I want and I want to see in a presidential candidate.’ And this year, I found Bobby Kennedy, and I thought, ‘Man, this guy is it. He’s the real deal.’ And in a perfect world, whatever that would look like, perhaps I would have voted for Bobby.”
“But we don’t live in a perfect world,” Levi continued. “In fact, we live in a very broken one, we live in a country that has been hijacked by a lot of people who want to take this place way off the cliff. And we want to stop that, right?”
“We’re here to make sure that we are going to take back this country, we are going to make it great again, we are going to make it healthy again,” Levi said from the stage. “And so, I stand with Bobby, and I stand with Tulsi, and I stand with everyone else who is standing with President Trump.”
“Because I do believe, of the two choices that we have, and we only have two, Donald Trump, President Trump is the man that can get us there. And he’s gonna get us there because he’s gonna have the backing and the support and the wisdom and the knowledge and the fight that exists in Robert Kennedy Jr. and former representative Tulsi Gabbard.”
Before he began his remarks, Levi entered to Bachman Turner Overdrive’s 1973 song “Takin’ Care Of Business.” But for his next appearance, organizers might consider another classic song from that era: Stephen Stills’ folk-rock classic, “Love the One You’re With.” As Trump's fan base continues to dwindle, its that song—not the BTO hit or other songs the Trump campaign has used—that appear to best describe those who are still speaking on the former president's behalf.
Following this month’s ABC News debate between Kamala Harris and Trump, the latter declared “THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE” for him. A vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and Vance is scheduled for a CBS News on Oct. 1.
Trump recently said that if he loses this election, he doesn’t plan on running again. “That will be it. I don’t see that at all. Hopefully we are going to be successful,” he said this week.
