AUSTIN, Texas — Actor and Austinite Matthew McConaughey said he is still "measuring" whether or not to run for Texas governor on the “Sway” podcast by the The New York Times Opinion.
McConaughey said politics is a “broken business,” so much so that “it’s getting dangerous.” He said it is an important time to be a centrist in politics, like he is.
“I think we’ve got to redefine politics," McConaughey said. "If each party’s only about preservation of party, well, I’m almost arguing that’s undemocratic. If you’re only there to, by hook or by crook, preserve your party, you’re leaving out 50% of the people. So, I think politics needs a redefining.”
McConaughey told Kara Swisher, host of the podcast, that one side of his internal argument on joining the race is to fix the problems he knows exist. The other side is that politics is “a bag of rats” and his influence is more helpful outside of the industry.
“Who am I going to be?” McConaughey said. “Where can I be most useful? Is politics an embassy for me to be of the most use to myself, to my family, to the most amount of people my life moving forward?”
The Academy-award-winning actor first mentioned the possibility of running for the governor of Texas in 2020. Since then, he’s said it is a “true consideration”
Gov. Greg Abbott is up for reelection in 2022.
On the podcast, McConaughey told Swisher that he would have mandated masks in the State of Texas. He also said the implementation of the new Texas abortion law “feels a little juvenile.”
“I’m not going to come out and tell you right now on this show, here’s where I stand about abortion,” McConaughey said. “We’ve been trying to figure out that, and how to play God with that situation since the beginning. But this latest move by Texas? It’s a little bit of … feels like a back to front sort of Roe v. Wade loophole that they’re trying to get into.”
McConaughey also said he doesn’t know enough details about Senate Bill 1, Texas’s election reform bill, but thinks it should be easier to vote.
“I think people want a third party, and we’ve got one,” McConaughey told Swisher. “It doesn’t have a name right now, and it is the majority. It is 60% of the population in America.”
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