Actor Dennis Quaid says Ronald Reagan would ‘no doubt’ trounce Trump to lead Republicans

Dennis Quaid has claimed Ronald Reagan would ‘no doubt’ defeat Donald Trump to be the head of today’s Republican Party.

Quaid, 70, made the comments while promoting his new movie, Reagan, where he plays the former actor-turned president.

While many have argued that the GOP has gone through fundamental changes under Trump, and that the modern Party would not elect Reagan, the actor believes Reagan would be able to best Trump in a primary contest. 

‘Reagan would be the head of the Republican Party these days, there’s no doubt about that,’ Quaid told Fox News.

‘This country yearns for it, in a sense. He was a man of his times, as well. And I think those principles are still there in the Republican Party of today.’

Regan earned $7.4million in box office revenue from Friday through Sunday, and had an estimated cumulative total of $9.2million – including projections for Labor Day Monday, the Christian Post reported. 

It wound up finishing third in the box office over the holiday weekend, behind Deadpool & Wolverine and Alien, and earned a 98 percent approval rating among movie-goers.

That is a stark contrast from the dismal 18 percent approval score it earned from movie critics, marking the largest gap between critics and audiences in Hollywood history. 

The film follows Reagan’s journey from his humble small-town childhood to Hollywood stardom and eventually to the 40th president of the United States.

It focuses on his resilience and the support of his wife, Nancy, and is narrated by a fictional former KGB agent whose life intersects with Reagan’s during his time as a Hollywood star.

Quaid attributed the film’s success to Reagan’s popularity on both sides of the aisle.

‘Having a dialogue is really what it’s about,’ he previously told Fox Business.

 Quaid, 70, is seen playing Reagan in his new film, Reagan

The actor believes Reagan would be able to best Trump in a primary contest. Reagan and Trump are pictured in 1987 at the White House

‘I think that’s what we need to get back to in this country,’ Quaid continued. ‘We all seem to want to and we’re searching around for how to do that.

‘It’s been so long, there’s been so much divisiveness. It’s like you can’t have these conversations.

‘It’s OK if you have a different opinion because we all want the same thing,’ he continued. ‘How we’re going about it is just different.’

Quaid has also said there were a ‘couple of attempts to cancel me’ during the production of the film.

He then told podcaster Joe Rogan that Facebook even censored online promotion of the film out of concern it could ‘sway an election,’ though the platform later blamed the ‘mistake’ on its ‘automatic systems.’

‘This happened because our automated systems mistakenly determined that content about President Reagan required prior authorization in accordance with our policies for ads about Social Issues, Elections or Politics,’ a spokesperson for the social network told Newsweek after it shared a letter from Quaid.

‘This was a mistake and the restriction on the ads has been lifted.’

Many have argued that the GOP has gone through fundamental changes under the leadership of former president Trump and the modern Party would not elect Reagan

Regan earned $7.4million in box office revenue from Friday through Sunday, and had an estimated cumulative total of $9.2million – including projections for Labor Day Monday

Following the film’s release this weekend, critics also hit out the film for its portrayal of the Republican president.

‘Regardless of how you feel about Ronald Reagan, the president, most will be united in finding this biopic a preachy, plodding, graceless groaner,’ Nick Schager wrote for the Daily Beast.

He said it was ‘ungainly and transparent that it plays like embarrassing propaganda.’

Similarly, Boston Globe critic Odie Henderson wrote that it is ‘so sanitized that it feels like Darryl Zanuck or Reagan’s old boss Jack Warner would have slapped it onscreen back in 1940.’