Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor discussed his ‘hatred’ of all Republican Presidential candidates, his passion for climate change, and why he backs Hillary Clinton in a new Daily Beast interview.
“We live in a society now where it’s real easy from your armchair or basement to complain, make a meme, minimalize, and attack. It’s the culture of sniping and strange forms of political correctness and armchair activism. But who can argue that? I get it. But behind it all, it certainly seems to me like somebody who’s trying to do something from a good place—to enlighten as many people about something that does matter, that is real—and if it turns a few people on, it gets a conversation started, or it at least calls to attention the many, many flaws of this candidate [Trump], one of which is the denial of science, then that’s a good thing.”
He was also asked about Donald Trump bringing Bill Clinton’s rape and sexual assault accusers to the second Presidential debate. Trump brought Juanita Broaddrick, who claims Bill Clinton viciously raped her (including biting her lip) in the 70’s and that Hillary Clinton intimidated her into silence for decades, Paula Jones, who received a six figure settlement in a sexual assault lawsuit against Bill Clinton, and Kathleen Willey, who claims Bill Clinton sexually assaulted her by fondling her breasts and forcing her hand on his penis in a private study in the Oval Office.
Kathy Shelton also attended the debate. Shelton was brutally raped when she was 12-years old, and then lawyer Hillary Clinton (known as Hillary Rodham at the time) represented the alleged rapist and helped him get only two months in jail. During the trial, Hillary accused the 12-year old Shelton of fantasizing about sex with older men and being the sexual aggressor. She later laughed about the alleged rapist passing a lie detector test in a recording, saying it made her lose complete faith in lie detector tests. Hillary once tweeted, “Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported.”
Reznor said he felt sympathy for Hillary having to deal with the women in attendance.
“Oh, it was terrible. And you think, ‘Who would want that job?’ What a humiliating and terrible ordeal to have to even put up with. It is surreal. I’ll admit that I was entertained during the Republican debates and the whole process of whittling them down. It’s kind of fun to see a grenade go off and see these guys—I hate every one of them—be eliminated and humiliated. But it stopped being funny months ago. It’s sad to see the discourse be dragged this low. It’s absurd that this is even happening.”
He also worried about Hillary Clinton, the candidate he ‘100% supports,’ walking into a ‘terrible’ situation as President.
“Hopefully Trump will flame out any minute now, but the effect of him—or he himself—is not going to go away, and there’s going to be an awful lot of very energized followers. We all know they’re not going to say, ‘Well, let’s support Hillary because she’s the president now.’ She’s walking into a terrible situation.”
“Since it’s down to two people, there’s no question that 100 percent of my support is going towards her.”
Despite saying he is ‘100%’ behind Clinton, Reznor said he feels less passionate about her than he did Bernie Sanders.
“I’ll admit that I was more enthused about Bernie in terms of the sense of upheaval and revolution. I’m not saying anything that isn’t very obvious here, but that passion and that ignition of feelings—of wow, we could affect change—is the same way I felt before Obama got in. I feel less passionate about Clinton, personally.”
