On CBS’s “This Morning” on Tuesday, in an appearance promoting upcoming movie “The Raven,” actor John Cusack said that he was troubled by President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, accusing them of continuing the “imperial presidency of the Bush administration with these claims to executive privilege.”
Cusack, whose politics are distinctly left-leaning, complained that the Obama administration was overstepping the boundaries of due process.
“I sort of feel like there’s some kind of Rubicon line issues that I hope are addressed that don’t have to do with left and right, and some of those issues that the Obama administration has with due process and with the assassination of American citizens — this speech by Eric Holder, I think, are deeply troubling. I think that’s beyond left and right.”
Cusack said that Obama was just continuing the “excesses of the Bush administration,” which he actively campaigned against during George W. Bush’s presidency.
“But from a civil libertarian point of view, the excesses of the Bush administration — I think [Obama] had a constitutional obligation to correct that, and I don’t think they have, and I think that’s deeply troubling for my nephews and for my future.”
“I don’t think the executive branch — I think that they’ve kind of continued that imperial presidency of the Bush administration with these claims to executive privilege,” Cusack concluded. “I thought that speech about the assassination of American citizens, you know, in the name of [the War on] Terror was, I thought, very, very troubling.”