Dr. Phil McGraw appeared at Donald Trump‘s Madison Square Garden rally, telling the crowd that the former president was “tough as an old Army boot” and pushing back on the idea that he is a bully.
McGraw had interviewed Trump earlier this year for his network Merit Street Media, when the former daytime host said that he doesn’t endorse candidates but sided with the former president’s claims that his prosecutions were rigged.
At today’s rally, McGraw said that he was “not here just to stand up for Donald J. Trump. Lord knows, he doesn’t need me to stand up for him. He’s tough as an old army boot. He’s got lots of enemies, different groups that are scared, and between them, they have impeached him, indicted him, raided him, railroaded him, shot him and sued him. And where is he? He is still standing.”
McGraw said that he “can be honest and say I don’t like or agree with everything that Donald J. Trump does or says.”
“No human is perfect. We don’t strive for perfection. We strive for excellence,” he said.”but you don’t have to love everything about someone in order to love them, and the last thing he needs is some celebrity endorsement.”
McGraw spent much of his remarks claiming that Trump supporters are being bullied and silenced, telling the crowd. He said that they are “canceled, intimidated, marginalized, excluded or even fired or boycotted.”
“When you attack a citizen, and you use the power of the Internet, you use mob mentality, you incite people to gang up and cause boycotts, then it is beyond ugly,” he said. “And that is what is happening in this country right now, and that is not OK.”
He added, “There is an imbalance of power there, and it is time that every one of us close ranks. We have to stop this now. It’s time that we push back against cancel culture. It’s time that we push back against intimidation tactics.”
He also said that Trump was not a “bully” because “there has to be an imbalance of power, and when there’s not, it’s just called a debate, and he’s just better at it than anybody else.”
He also talked of how other celebrity endorsements are covered in the media. “I would love to say it’s equal on both sides, but I’ll guarantee you when Beyonce, George Clooney, De Niro and Rizzo come out and say they’re for Kamala Harris, did you read anything or hear anything in the media criticizing it? No, but you watch what happens tomorrow morning when people find out I came here to talk to you.”
McGraw talked of the First Amendment “where our government has said we will pass no laws to infringe on our freedoms for religion and speech. So that’s the law, but we’re muzzling each other. What is going on? We have a law that protects free speech so we start taking it away from each other? Are you kidding me? We can’t allow that to happen.”
McGraw alluded to Trump’s claim that 60 Minutes edited an interview question with Kamala Harris to help her. The show said that the edit was to trim a segment for its run time, and claims that they were being deceptive are “false.”
McGraw did not mention that Trump has called on CBS to lose its broadcast license, along with other networks who have broadcast content he disagrees with. “These threats against free speech are serious and should not be ignored,” FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement earlier this month.