Here's why John Cusack says Obama is ‘worse than Bush’

In a Q&A with The Daily Beast to promote his new movie “Love & Mercy,” in which he plays Beach Boy cofounder Brian Wilson, John Cusack gave his opinion on the job performance of President Barack Obama.

When told that a recent CNN poll revealed that former president George W. Bush currently has a higher approval rating than President Obama, the actor replied:

“Well, Obama has certainly extended and hardened the cement on a lot of Bush’s post-9/11 Terror, Inc. policies, so he’s very similar to Bush in every way that way. His domestic policy is a bit different, but when you talk about drones, the American Empire, the NSA, civil liberties, attacks on journalism and whistleblowers, he’s as bad or worse than Bush. He hasn’t started as many wars, but he’s extended the ones we had, and I don’t even think Dick Cheney or Richard Nixon would say the president has the right to unilaterally decide whom he can kill around the world. On Tuesdays, the president can just decide whom he wants to kill, and you know, since 9/11 there are magic words like ‘terror,’ and if you use magic words, you can justify any power grab you want.”

This isn't the first time Cusack has been vocal about the Obama Administration. In 2012 he wrote a piece that criticized Obama for “shredding civil liberties and due process.” He also took part in an anti-NSA ad on 2013.

In The Daily Beast interview Cusack also responded to Vince Vaughn’s opinion that guns should be allowed in schools. 

“The thing is, you’d say ‘what schools’ and ‘what version of America are we talking about?’ If you look at the site called HeyJackass.com it’ll tell you about how many murders have happened in Chicago, giving you weekly and monthly updates, and you can probably find out how many murders have happened in Baltimore and all over the country. That’s not the kind of debate where you want to do a tit-for-tat with what two celebrities think about it, and in order to talk about it you have to do it in an in-depth way—you need to follow the money and see what the politics are. But no, I think that’s a bad idea.”

However, when Cusack saw the Beast's headline for the interview "John Cusack Talks ‘Love & Mercy,’ Drug Trips, and the Ways Obama Is ‘Worse Than Bush’" he took to Twitter:

“Love & Mercy” opens in theaters on Friday.

SEE ALSO: Liberal John Cusack is starring in a Rush Limbaugh biopic

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 'The Little Prince' trailer looks better than anything Pixar has made in years