Kevin Spacey Compares Donald Trump’s Candidacy to 1968 Race

While many are labeling this year’s presidential race as the wildest one in recent memory, Kevin Spacey is not one of them.

On Thursday, hours ahead of the much-hyped Fox News GOP debate that will reunite Donald Trump with anchor Megyn Kelly, Trump continued to make headlines when he told a rally of supporters that he could have made Mitt Romney “drop to his knees” when the then-candidate asked for his endorsement in 2012.

Still, when Spacey was asked if he would characterize this election season as “astonishing,” the actor who plays President Frank Underwood on Netflix’s House of Cards said no, telling CNN’s Alisyn Camerota that our country has seen the likes of Donald Trump’s antics in the past.

“There are many parallels that we could make to the 1968 race — George Wallace ran a very similar kind of campaign,” Spacey said about the former Alabama governor’s controversial bid for the White House. “He did exactly the same sorts of things: attacked journalists, attacked integrity of other candidates, used racism, insulted people, there were fights at his rallies.”

Letting out a laugh, Spacey says, “You sort of go, ‘Oh yeah, we’ve seen this before.'”

When Netflix releases Season 4 of House of Cards on Friday, Spacey returns to the Oval Office as a fictional presidential villain on the political drama. Then on Sunday, the actor narrates Race for the White House, a six-part CNN series analyzing the dramatic moments of campaigns’ past.

And it appears that looking back has helped him to see things clearly up ahead.

“The good news about our country,” says Spacey, “is no matter how crazy it gets and no matter how much fun we have and how insane it looks, we generally get it right in the end. We generally figure it out.”

He added, “I’m very hopeful.”

Kevin Spacey, EP of @CNN‘s “Race for the White House,” explains to @AlisynCamerota why he got involved. https://t.co/YYfk4WGFKQ

— New Day (@NewDay) March 3, 2016