Matt Damon and Ben Affleck might not be so pleased to learn about their newest famous fan. On Saturday, Donald Trump posted a video on Truth Social featuring Damon’s monologue as the legendary Nike marketing and sales rep Sonny Vaccaro in the Affleck-directed Air.
“Money can buy you almost anything,” Damon says in the video, as images of Trump come and go. “It can’t buy you immortality; that you have to earn.”
The video includes the caption “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” as well as a donation link.
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A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to a question about whether he’d received permission to use the audio. A spokesperson for Artists Equity, Damon and Ben Affleck’s production company, told The Daily Beast in a statement that the Trump campaign did not have permission to use the clip.
“We had no foreknowledge of, did not consent to and do not endorse or approve any footage or audio from Air being repurposed by the Trump campaign as a political advertisement or for any other use,” the spokesperson said, adding that “we hereby, expressly give notice that in the case of any use of material from Air by the Trump campaign where approval or consent is required, we do not grant such consent.”
Damon publicly supported Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, and a year later, he called Trump’s response to the riots in Charlottesville, Virginia “absolutely abhorrent.” Affleck was also among the celebrities who backed Democrats in 2020 and has publicly criticized Trump.
“You knew you were at a cheesy party if Donald Trump was there,” Affleck told The Guardian in 2017. “He would kind of trawl around them.”
That said, it’s not hard to divine what might’ve appealed to Trump about the monologue.
“People are going to build you up,” Damon says. “…Because you’re great. And new. We love you. Man, we’ll build you into something that doesn’t even exist… But you know what? Once they’ve built you as high as they possibly can, they’re going to tear you back down.”
Sounds like someone’s taking their recent indictment personally.
This is not the first time Trump has tried to fuel his campaign efforts by injecting some pop culture; sadly, like his onetime nemesis Ted Cruz, the former president loves a good reference.
Hans Zimmer fans might recall that in 2019, Twitter removed a video Trump posted using music from The Dark Knight Rises after Warner Bros. reportedly filed a copyright claim. (Let’s not forget that Trump’s 2017 inauguration speech also borrowed a line from that movie’s villain, Bane.) R.E.M. also blasted the then-president for retweeting a meme that appropriated their song “Everybody Hurts” for mockery.
Trump even cribbed his re-election campaign slogan, “Keep America Great,” from the horror franchise The Purge.
