Sean Penn Torches Donald Trump’s Covid-19 Response at Cannes: ‘Openly Neglected by an Obscene Administration’

Kate Green/Getty Images
Sean Penn went after Donald Trump at a Cannes Film Festival press conference — trashing his “maddening” Covid-19 response.
Penn made the comments while answering questions on his new film Flag Day, which received a four-minute standing ovation at the festival.
“I don’t think that I can illuminate anything that shouldn’t be plain to the eye,” Penn said on Sunday. “We were — not only as a country but as a world — let down and ultimately neglected, misinformed, had truth and reason assaulted under what was, in all terms, an obscene administration, humanly and politically.”
Sean Penn speaks during the “Flag Day” press conference at the 74th annual Cannes Film Festival
More #GettyVideo ? #Cannes74 ? https://t.co/mvCGSiUUdo@SeanPenn @mgmstudios #FlagDay #Cannes2021 #festivaldecannes #redcarpet @Festival_Cannes #Cannes pic.twitter.com/rKSICTTdEW— Getty Images Entertainment (@GettyVIP) July 11, 2021
“When my team and I would come home from test and vaccination sites at night, particularly during the testing period during the Trump administration — it really felt like there was someone with a machine gun gunning down communities that were the most vulnerable from a turret at the White House,” Penn continued.
The actor did give some kudos, however, just not to the former president.
“In the transition to the task force that President [Joe] Biden put together, it was really that feeling like a sun was rising,” he said. “There was no effort of integrity coming from the federal government until the Trump administration was dismissed.”