Actor Jason Clarke, who stars as Senator Ted Kennedy in the new film Chappaquiddick, said liberal cable news programs were ignoring the film about the scandal in which Kennedy abandoned the scene of an accident, leaving his passenger to drown.
Clarke was asked by Deadline Hollywood if politically-themed cable news shows were interested in covering the film. "To my knowledge, the ones on the left unfortunately aren’t really embracing it, but the ones on the right seem to be all over it," he said.
"Look, we’ve definitely gotten a lot interest from the right from Fox, but the left are not engaging," he said. "Bill Maher and Rachel Maddow passed on covering the film. I think Chris Mathews is still considering but hasn’t committed, and The New York Times isn’t really entering into a dialogue about it." Both Maddow and Matthews host MSNBC shows, while Maher hosts a political talk show on HBO.
Clarke noted the Times reticence is ironic, given that it was a Times journalist who broke the 1969 Chappaquiddick story to begin with.
"I think a lot of people, particularly on the left, have had trouble giving TV slots and things because they don’t want to discuss this right now," he said. "It’s like, this devil in the White House needs to be defeated, no matter what."
Clarke urged liberals not to ignore the film. "I don’t believe the Democratic Party should morph into something that it should not be, in an attempt to beat [Trump]. More Americans voted to support Hillary Clinton. There’s hypocrisy in ignoring certain things," he said.