'The Newsroom' Star Jeff Daniels Agrees 'America's Not The Greatest Country In The World Anymore

Jeff Daniels, who stars as anchor Will McAvoy in HBO’s critically un-acclaimed “The Newsroom,” debuting Sunday night, agrees that “America’s not the greatest country in the world anymore.” 

Daniels and Aaron Sorkin, the show’s creator, were on “Piers Morgan Tonight” on Friday discussing the show when Morgan played the much-publicized clip in which McAvoy is asked by a college student why America is the best country in the world and goes on a tirade against America that is reflective of the scornful and shameful way in which Hollywood liberals, mainstream media elites, and academics in ivory towers  feel about the greatest country known to man, which Abraham Lincoln referred to as “man’s last, best hope.” 

(It is worth noting that the elites hypocritically benefit from America’s freedoms and way of life and choose to reside in a nation they feel is so terrible and the root of all that is wrong with the world.)

Morgan, a Brit, introduced the clip by saying the speech was “fantastic” and later  praised it again as a “great speech.” McAvoy, Daniels’ character on the show, says this in the clip Morgan aired:

I didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last eve election. And we didn’t scare so easy. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed, by great men, men who were revered. First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America’s not the greatest country in the world anymore.

A longer version of the clip shows Daniels’s character citing America’s literacy and infant mortality rates, among other things, to obtusely make the case that the world’s most exceptional nation is rather unexceptional and ordinary.

After airing the clip, Morgan says to Daniels, “Let me ask you a difficult question. When you said it, did you believe it yourself?”

In response, Daniels says:

… I remember reading it going, ‘you may not like it, you may disagree with it, you know, you — for those who are patriotic and wave the flag and don’t want to hear it, but there’s nothing in it that’s not true’ …  Each phrase, each thing that Aaron has Will say, it’s all true. Sorry to tell you, but it’s true.

Daniels then says the speech “resonated” with him and the speech was “gold” for an actor like him.

Sorry, Mr. Daniels. Will’s words and premise are demonstrably false and only believed by those who do not think America is exceptional and is no different or better than Brazil, Turkey, Canada, China, Spain, Kenya, or Azerbaijan. 

And despite the prevalence in the dominant popular culture of people like Sorkin and Daniels, who pal around with liberals like President Barack Obama, America still remains a shining city upon a hill. And if, God forbid, America ever ceases to be exceptional, it will be because of those in Hollywood, academia, and the mainstream media who, like Daniels, cheer McAvoy’s words and believe in their bones that McAvoy’s sentiment about America is true.