Tom Hanks Says America Is "Going To Be All Right"
By Ned Ehrbar
(CBS NEWS) – Tom Hanks has a lot to say to anyone despairing over Donald Trump's victory.
The "Sully" star was honored Tuesday night by the Museum of Modern Art for his career in film, and while accepting the honor he took a moment to reassure those assembled -- including Steven Spielberg, Stephen Colbert, Steve Martin and Emma Watson -- about the future of the United States following last week's election.
"We are going to be all right. America has been in worse places than we are at right now," he said. "In my own lifetime, our streets were in chaos, our generations were fighting each other tooth and nail. Every dinner table ended up being as close to a fistfight as human families allow."
Hanks' sense of security about the future, he explained, comes from the existence of the U.S. Constitution.
"We have this magnificent thing that is in place. It's a magnificent document," he said, slipping into a song from "Schoolhouse Rock" about the Constitution before continuing: "That document is going to protect us over and over again whether or not our neighbors preserve, protect and defend it themselves."
"We are going to be all right because we constantly get to tell the world who we. We constantly get to define ourselves as Americans. We do have the greatest country in the world," he said. "We have the greatest country in the world because we are always moving towards a more perfect union. That journey never ceases, it never stops."
The "Forrest Gump" star also took a moment to address a call Michael Moore had made earlier for him to be put forward as a presidential candidate for the Democrats, saying he "would like to strangle Michael Moore" for suggesting it.
"We will take everything that has been handed to us as Americans," Hanks concluded. "And we will turn our nation and we will turn the future and we will turn all the work that we have before us into some brand new thing of beauty."
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