Silicon Valley entrepreneur and gay billionaire Peter Thiel backed up his million-dollar-plus donation to Donald Trump with a full-throated endorsement of the GOP nominee at a speech at the National Press Club on Monday.
The PayPal founder said Trumpism "isn't crazy and it's not going away," and added that this election "is less crazy than the condition of our country."
"Real events seem like they're rehearsals for Saturday Night Live," Thiel said. "Only an outbreak of insanity would seem to account for the unprecedented fact that this year a political outsider managed to win a major-party nomination."
Thiel, who also gave a speech at the Republican National Convention, said he, too, disapproved of Trump's lewd comments about women that surfaced when an 11-year-old videotape was leaked a few weeks ago.
"Nobody thinks his comments about women were acceptable; I agree they were clearly offensive and inappropriate," Thiel said.
"But I don't think voters pull the lever in order to endorse a candidate's flaws. It's not a lack of judgment that leads Americans to vote for Trump; we're voting for Trump because we judge the leadership of our country to have failed."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.