It’s not every night that coverage on the politically opposed cable-news channels Fox News and MSNBC align. But leave it to Oscar–winner Sean Penn, who was in Ukraine shooting a Vice documentary about the conflict, to temporarily bridge the gap. Penn was a guest on both networks Tuesday, reflecting on his time spent with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his belief that the country will emerge victorious.
During the making of his documentary, Penn found himself on the front lines of Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. The actor previously visited the country last November; he returned in February, and said that he walked miles on foot to the Polish border. Penn has continued to visit crisis zones in the area for both the doc and his humanitarian efforts with the Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE), a group he cofounded in 2010.
Penn’s first stop on Tuesday was for an in-person interview on Fox News’ Hannity. Host Sean Hannity told viewers that during his first phone call with Penn, the actor made his misgivings about the pundit known. “I said, ‘I don’t trust you,’” Penn said.
“But we have to get on with life…. We all talk about how divisive things are, how divided things are here. When you step into a country of such incredible unity, you realize what we’ve all been missing,” Penn continued. “I don’t think I’ve got time to indulge my lack of trust, which becomes a petty thing…these people are fighting for the very dreams and aspirations of all of us Americans.”
Penn also recalled his first face-to-face meeting with Zelenskyy, which he said occurred the day before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “I don’t know that there’s a person on Earth who could know that they were born for such a day, that they could rise to it,” Penn said, later adding, “In him, I saw something I’d never seen before.… It is clear to me that the Ukrainians will win this. The question is, at what cost?”
MSNBC’s The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell was his next stop, where Penn praised Zelenskyy’s leadership skills and Ukraine’s sense of unity. “This is freedom of thought and true leadership that, mostly, is just so moving,” he said. “It’s the kind of moving that we need to be able to get [to the United States], which is borderline a kind of populist lap dance of a nation at this point. We’ve got to get back on track together and realize that Ukraine, with all its diversity, has a unity we’ve never seen in modern times with the challenge it has.”
This isn’t Penn’s first taste of cable-news advocacy. Ahead of the Oscars in March, he told CNN’s Jim Acosta that if the Academy didn’t invite Zelenskyy to appear, he would smelt his Oscars. “Though it may be their moment—and I understand that—to celebrate their films, it is so much more importantly their moment to shine, and to protest, and to boycott that Academy Awards,” Penn said. “I myself, if it comes back to it, when I return, I will smelt mine in public.”
While the Ukrainian leader didn’t speak at the Academy Awards, he did provide a pretaped message at the Grammys a week later. There’s no word on the smelting status of Penn’s trophies.
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