Peter Thiel says Trump was the only Republican presidential hopeful who wasn’t a ‘zombie’

Billionaire Peter Thiel has praised Donald Trump saying he was the only Republican candidate for president who wasn’t a ‘zombie’.

The PayPal co-founder said Trump was the only presidential hopeful who didn’t stick to ‘programmed ideological soundbites’, Bloomberg reports.

Speaking at an event on entrepreneurship in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Monday, Thiel claimed Trump was a ‘very healthy corrective’ to the problem of political correctness in politics.

‘I got to meet a lot of people running for president on the US Republican side in 2016 and they all felt like zombies,’ the 50-year-old said.

‘They couldn’t say anything different other than programmed ideological soundbites.’

He added that although he understands why some consider Trump a ‘rude, mean person,’ he believes that’s better than telling ‘beautiful lies about the way the country is working’.

Thiel also said with the ‘flaws’ and ‘challenges’ that the Trump administration has faced, it is important to ‘articulate certain things about how our political institutions and our society were not working as well as before.’

Thiel, who was the first big investor in Facebook and continues to sit on the company’s board despite selling most of his shares, used to be among the most vocal of Trump’s supporters.

The PayPal co-founder said Donald Trump (pictured) was the only presidential hopeful who didn’t stick to ‘programmed ideological soundbites’

He stumped for Trump at the Republican National Convention in 2016 and was on Trump’s transition team.

But over the past year, he has remained silent on Trump’s performance in the White House.

His comments on Monday only came in response to a question about the president that was asked by David Velez, the CEO of Nubank – a Brazilian financial technology startup backed by Thiel’s Founders Fund.