A former WWE champion has thrown his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris as the US presidential election is less than a week away.
Speaking on CNN, former professional wrestler Mick Foley publicly supported Harris, while also taking a moment to bash former President Donald Trump.
Foley’s decision is a departure from other former professional wrestling stars such as The Undertaker and Hulk Hogan, both of whom have publicly supported the Republican candidate for office.
“The Undertaker was right, Donald Trump made politics fun… for about three weeks in 2016,” Foley said on CNN’s “Laura Coates Live.”
He continued: ‘But there’s nothing nice about his rhetoric, there’s nothing nice about the way he demeans the citizens of this country, nothing nice about the way he talks down to women – and in my experience, real men respect strong women , they don’t ‘I don’t live in fear of them.’
Former WWF Champion Mick Foley has publicly endorsed Kamala Harris for president
Foley also talked about how politics – and his political views – have put a strain on his relationships with other people, and how he hopes that can change.
‘I can count on one hand the number of friends I have lost because of politics. Friendships are stronger, family is stronger. The things that bring us together are so much more meaningful than the things that divide us.
“I mean, I have my most famous match with The Undertaker in Pittsburgh, that’s part of the reason why I decided to come, because I have a lot of history in Pennsylvania.”
He added, “When I see him next time, we will hug him, agree to disagree and do our best to keep a friendship of thirty years strong.”
When asked what specifically drew him to Harris, Foley says he has been an admirer of the vice president for some time.
Foley said, “I’ve always liked Kamala Harris, going back to when she was campaigning for president five years ago. I liked what she had to say. I just believe she’s a very positive person, a very capable person. I want to embrace the joy she brings, the optimism, and not the fear that has been the hallmark of Donald Trump.”
He told host Laura Coates that it was hard for him to come on the show — and hard for him to deliver a nearly five-minute endorsement of Harris because of possible backlash he might get.
“I don’t particularly want people to dislike me, and I know that if you speak out against someone who is very powerful and has a very strong and loyal following, you’re going to get a negative backlash,” Foley admitted.
Foley said he was “used” to Trump growing up on Long Island and considered him a fraud
Foley, who wrestled under multiple personas, won four world wrestling championships
“But I also realized that I didn’t want to wake up the day after the election and find out that a swing state had been lost by a few hundred votes, and that I could have made a difference.
“So to me, the two dirtiest words in the English language are ‘what if,’ and I don’t want to be that guy. So I spoke out four years ago, I’m doing it now. I think one thing that most of his followers don’t understand is the long history he’s had of… screwing over his employees… he’s got a long history of not paying his contractors and his employees, so I I think this is the height of hypocrisy to say that you are for the working man, when your history shows that you are only for yourself.
‘I don’t understand the mystery. I grew up on Long Island, so I was used to him. My friends and I saw him as some kind of harmless scammer, but he is no longer harmless – he is a very dangerous scammer. And I’m going to quote General Mark Milley when I say he is the greatest danger to our country.”
Foley – who wrestled under the alternate characters ‘Cactus Jack’, ‘Mankind’ and ‘Dude Love’ – is a four-time world wrestling champion.
He made a name for himself during wrestling’s “Attitude Era,” winning three WWF Championships in the late 1990s and a TNA World Championship in the late 2000s.
Additionally, he was an eight-time WWF Tag Team Champion and worked with other wrestling legends such as Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock and Kane.
Foley was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013.