White House Condemns Johnny Depp’s Talk About Trump Assassination

White House Condemns Johnny Depp’s Talk About Trump Assassination
Composite image of President Trump (L) and Johnny Depp (R) (Mandel Nagan/AFP/Getty Images and Adam Bettcher/Getty Images for Starkey Hearing Foundation)
Ivan Pentchoukov
6/23/2017
Updated:
6/23/2017

The White House on Friday issued a statement condemning Hollywood actor Johnny Depp’s recent remarks about assassinating President Donald Trump.

Depp asked a crowd in Glastonbury, U.K., “when was the last time an actor assassinated a president?”

The crowd laughed and cheered in response and Depp continued:

“I want to qualify, I am not an actor. I lie for a living. However, it has been a while and maybe it is time.”

Depp is likely referencing an actual presidential assassination by an actor in 1865, when John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

The White House condemned Depp’s rhetoric in a statement to ABC:

“President Trump has condemned violence in all forms and it’s sad that others like Johnny Depp have not followed his lead. I hope that some of Mr. Depp’s colleagues will speak out against this type of rhetoric as strongly as they would if his comments were directed to a Democrat elected official,” the statement read.

See video Johnny Depp’s assassination comments below this article.

The Secret Service, which is responsible for the president’s safety, also issued a statement to ABC.

“We actively monitor open source reporting, including social media networks, and we evaluate potential threats. For security reasons, we cannot discuss specifically nor in general terms the means and methods of how we perform our protective responsibilities,” the statement read.

Depp’s comments drew widespread condemnation from his own fans, many of whom vowed to boycott his movies.

“No joke about killing @POTUS is acceptable,” wrote GOP Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel. “I’m sick of celebrities getting away with such disgusting comments.”

Depp’s remarks also come on the heels of a shooting of Republican congressmen at a baseball practice last week.

“While #SteveScalise is in critical condition, you ”joke“ about assassination of the President of the United States?” tweeted actor James Woods.

The actor’s threat adds to a list of public violent insinuations against the president, some of which have already met with swift retribution from sponsors, employers, and venues.

Delta Airlines and Bank of America dropped their sponsorships of New York Public Theater after it stood by its production of Julius Caesar, which featured an on-stage assassination of a President Trump lookalike.

Meanwhile, comedian Kathy Griffin lost her only sponsor, New Year’s CNN gig, and had all of the upcoming performances on her tour cancelled, after posting a photograph of herself holding a mock bloodied and severed head of President Trump.

Video of Depp’s comments:

Ivan is the national editor of The Epoch Times. He has reported for The Epoch Times on a variety of topics since 2011.
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