Ford’s Fiery Rebuke: Harrison Slams Trump as ‘History’s Greatest Criminal’ in Climate Rant

By Elena Vasquez, Entertainment and Politics Correspondent

November 1, 2025 – Chicago, IL – Harrison Ford, the gravel-voiced icon of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, unleashed a scorching takedown of President Donald Trump this week, branding him “the greatest criminal in history” for prioritizing profit over the planet. In a no-holds-barred interview with The Guardian ahead of receiving a conservation leadership award at Chicago’s Field Museum, the 83-year-old actor accused Trump of “selling out America for cash” through his aggressive rollback of climate policies, dubbing it a betrayal that “scares the shit out of me.”

Ford’s remarks, delivered with the intensity of a man who’s played presidents from Air Force One to Marvel’s Thaddeus Ross in Captain America: Brave New World, cut deep into Trump’s environmental record. “The ignorance, the hubris, the lies, the perfidy,” Ford fumed. “He knows better, but he’s an instrument of the status quo and he’s making money, hand over fist, while the world goes to hell in a handbasket.” The actor’s words echo a long-simmering frustration with Trump’s administration, which has withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris Agreement for a second time, fired hundreds of climate scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and slashed funding for renewable energy initiatives.

At the heart of Ford’s ire is Trump’s recent United Nations speech, where the president dismissed climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” Trump urged allies like the UK to dismantle “ugly” wind farms in favor of oil drilling and pressured the European Union to ease regulations and buy more American fossil fuels. Ford sees this not as policy, but predation. “He doesn’t have any policies, he has whims,” the actor said, painting Trump as a fossil fuel enabler whose actions enrich corporate cronies at the expense of future generations. “It’s unbelievable. I don’t know of a greater criminal in history,” Ford concluded, his voice a low growl that could rival Han Solo’s smuggler’s snarl.

This isn’t Ford’s first rodeo in the political arena. A lifelong environmentalist and vice chair of Conservation International since 1991, he’s channeled his activism into roles that blur the line between fiction and fury. In 2010, he narrated the documentary Years of Living Dangerously, spotlighting climate devastation. By 2015, as a Democratic donor, Ford publicly rebuked then-candidate Trump after the future president praised his Air Force One performance, quipping, “Donald, it was a movie.” Ford’s disdain deepened during Trump’s first term, when he called the president’s Paris Accord exit “a clear expression of ignorance, of hubris and purposeful subterfuge.” Now, with Trump back in the White House and pushing a “drill, baby, drill” agenda amid record wildfires and hurricanes, Ford’s rhetoric has escalated to existential alarm.

The timing of Ford’s outburst is pointed. Just days before the November 5 midterm elections—seen as a referendum on Trump’s second-term overreach—the actor endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, vowing to vote for her and praising her “intellectual sophistication” on climate issues. “We are teetering on the edge” of irreversible biodiversity loss, Ford warned at the Field Museum event on October 29, urging “political will” to deploy new technologies like carbon capture. Yet, he lambasted Trump for sowing division: “He spent four years turning us against each other while embracing dictators and tyrants around the world. That’s not who we are.” In Ford’s view, Trump’s fossil fuel favoritism isn’t just negligent—it’s treasonous, a cash grab that dooms America to “the edge of nature’s collapse.”

Ford’s broadsides have ignited a firestorm on both coasts. Hollywood liberals, from Leonardo DiCaprio to Mark Ruffalo, rallied with retweets and amens, framing the rant as a clarion call against “climate denialism.” DiCaprio, a fellow UN Messenger of Peace, echoed: “Harrison’s right—Trump’s policies are criminal negligence.” On the right, Trump allies fired back. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed Ford as a “washed-up has-been peddling Hollywood hysteria,” while Fox News host Sean Hannity mocked the actor’s age: “At 83, Indiana Jones is lost in his own temple of doom.” Trump himself hasn’t directly responded—his Truth Social feed was consumed Friday by rally boasts and tariff threats—but surrogates like Donald Trump Jr. labeled it “Tinseltown tantrums from a guy who punches Nazis for a living.”

Public reaction splits along familiar lines. A snap Morning Consult poll showed 58% of independents agreeing with Ford’s climate urgency, but only 32% buying the “criminal” label. Social media buzzed: #FordVsTrump trended with 1.2 million posts, blending memes of Ford as President Marshall fist-fighting Trump to earnest threads on rising sea levels. Environmental groups like the Sierra Club amplified the clip, raising $2.3 million in 24 hours for anti-drilling campaigns.

Ford’s history as a reluctant activist adds gravitas. Raised in Chicago—site of his latest speech—he’s donated millions to rainforest preservation and narrated anti-poaching PSAs. His Marvel turn as a hawkish president in Brave New World (released July 2025) drew ironic parallels; Ford quipped post-premiere, “If only real presidents had my character’s backbone.” Yet, Ford insists his fire isn’t performative. “I’m frustrated about a lot of things in this country,” he told The Guardian. “But the other guy… we don’t need to make America great again. We need to make it whole.”

As midterms loom, Ford’s rant underscores a cultural chasm: one side sees Trump as a dealmaker, the other a dealer in doom. With global temperatures ticking toward 1.5°C thresholds and U.S. emissions rebounding 7% since 2024, the actor’s words land like a whip crack. “Everything he says is a lie,” Ford added, a line that could headline his next blockbuster. Whether it sways voters or just sells tickets, one thing’s clear: Harrison Ford isn’t riding into the sunset quietly. In a world on fire, he’s grabbing the hose—and aiming at the arsonist.