Academy-Award winning actor Tom Hanks thinks President Donald Trump handled his recent phone call to the widow of a fallen soldier all wrong, labeling it “one of the biggest cock-ups on the planet Earth.”
CNN reports Hanks, who starred in the critically-acclaimed film Saving Private Ryan , shared , “this is a tragedy of the utmost consequence and it goes much longer beyond who’s going to come out on top of the news story. I think it’s very sad.”
Hanks, who earlier this month, received the National Archives Foundation’s “Records of Achievement Award” added he thinks Americans should look to U.S. history for a better understanding of how current events are now unfolding.
“People are upset about what’s going on today,” he said. “They’re furious, they’re frustrated, they’re worked up. If you’re concerned about what’s going on today, read history and figure out what to do because it’s all right there.”
Hanks said the hot-button issue of how best to deal with Confederate monuments lies in both sides opening themselves up to greater dialogue.
“Let’s have that discussion, let’s have that be part and parcel to an ongoing reexamination about what is taught about (America’s founding),” Hanks said.
Trump and Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson have endlessly traded barbs over the last several days stemming from his condolence call to the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, one of four soldiers recently killed in ambush shooting in Niger earlier this month.
Wilson has long been close to Johnson and his family and happened to be in the vehicle his family was traveling in when Trump made his call that was placed on speaker phone.
Wilson later shared she heard Trump tell Johnson’s widow “he knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurts,” sparking outrage among many over what they perceived as its insensitive tone.
Trump has since tweeted that Wilson was “wacky” and “killing the Democrat Party” by speaking out on the issue.
The National Archives Foundation’s “Records of Achievement Award” is the highest honor given by the National Archives Foundation to an individual “whose work has fostered a broader national awareness of the history and identity of the United States through the use of original National Archives records.”
[Featured Image by Paul Morigi/Getty Images]