Actor Daniel Baldwin, once a self-described Obama supporter, now calls the former president "a criminal" and says Dr. Anthony Fauci "should go to prison", a political reversal that he says has cost him his career.
Baldwin made the remarks during an appearance on Bill O'Reilly's We'll Do It Live! podcast, Breitbart reported. The Hawaii Five-0 actor described a full break from the Democratic Party and from the progressive orthodoxy that dominates Hollywood, saying he went from backing Obama to viewing him as someone whose "legacy will be destroyed."
Baldwin did not hold back about the former president or about Fauci, the longtime federal health official who became the face of the government's COVID-era response. And he made clear he understands the professional price tag attached to saying any of it out loud.
When O'Reilly pressed Baldwin on the pressure actors face to present as left-wingers in order to keep getting work, Baldwin responded with a blunt account of his own political journey. He told O'Reilly he had been a Democrat and an Obama supporter, but that looking back forced him to reckon with what he now considers a record that will not hold up.
"I was a Democrat. I supported Barack Obama. I and now look I back at it now with. and I feel very bad because I think he's going to be in big trouble. His legacy will be destroyed. He's a criminal in my opinion. But I was part of it so I didn't really notice it. Now my phone never rings now."
That last line, "my phone never rings now", captures what Baldwin describes as the cost of crossing Hollywood's political line. He pointed to actors Dean Cain and Scott Baio as examples of conservatives whose careers stalled after they spoke up. Baldwin framed his own experience the same way: speak your mind, lose the work.
Baldwin went further on Fauci. He told O'Reilly that he uses his own podcast to say publicly what he believes about the doctor's record.
"I have a podcast that I come right out and call Anthony Fouci a war criminal."
He followed that with a direct call for accountability.
"He's a war criminal. He should go to prison, for sure. And a lot of the rest of them. So it's not popular to be on this side."
Baldwin did not cite specific actions or evidence to support either the "criminal" label for Obama or the "war criminal" label for Fauci. Both statements are his personal opinions, not legal findings or formal charges. But the willingness to say them on a major podcast, and to accept the professional fallout, marks a sharp departure from the quiet grumbling that has characterized most conservative dissent inside the entertainment industry for years.
The political divide has not just cost Baldwin auditions. It has fractured his family. Baldwin previously revealed on a podcast that his relationship with his brother, actor Alec Baldwin, has collapsed over their political differences.
"Alec and I don't even talk."
That statement came during a separate, earlier podcast appearance. The rift underscores how deeply the political fault lines in Hollywood run, not just through casting offices and studio boardrooms, but through families.
Baldwin's public break with the left is not new. Back in 2016, he scolded fellow Democrats for claiming that Donald Trump had somehow stolen the election. But his language has sharpened considerably since then. Calling a former president a criminal and demanding prison for a former top government health official goes well beyond scolding.
Baldwin told O'Reilly he believes the entertainment industry's political stranglehold is not permanent. He predicted a shift in the years ahead.
"You're going to see production and stuff change in Hollywood in the next decade."
Whether that prediction holds remains to be seen. Hollywood's institutional lean to the left is decades old, and the incentives that keep actors quiet, work, money, social standing, have not changed. But Baldwin's willingness to torch those incentives on a public platform suggests at least one actor has decided the trade is no longer worth making.
When the price of honesty is a silent phone and a brother who won't talk to you, and people pay it anyway, the system doing the punishing is the one with something to answer for.
