Actor, activist, spokesmodel for Lincoln Motor Company, nude bongo player, and generally affable stoner Matthew McConaughey says that it's "inevitable" that he should run for president one day, and he'll likely just get "pulled into it."

McConaughey was "in conversation" Tuesday at Dreamforce (full video at that link with Salesforce sign-in) in San Francisco with his friend, Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff, on stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater. As SFGate tells us, Benioff asked McConaughey about his political ambitions, and what came out was a very McConaughey-esque word salad about his political destiny.

"Yeah I'll consider it in the future, I'd be arrogant not to, absolutely I would consider it," McConaughey reportedly said. Arrogant not to?? What?

"If I got into any form of politics I'd be remiss not to also go in as an artist and a storyteller; help put a narrative together," McConaughey continued. "You're the CEO of a state and a nation, a lot of compartmentalization and choices to be made. They scare me but I'm not afraid of 'em."

It just gets better from there.

Regarding a run for president, McConaughey said, "If that happened to me I would be pulled into it. If I'm living right, which I'm trying to, we get pulled into things ... it's inevitable. I didn't choose it, it chose me."


How does McConaughey view our extremely divided electorate? "There's definitely a greater divide now than there has been," he reportedly said. "One thing is we have to admit that part of that divide is the Kool-Aid we're being sold. The divide is not as thick as we're being sold; most of us are much more near the middle than we're being told."

The actor-philosopher has been toying with politics for about the last year, teasing the public with a potential run for governor in his native Texas last year, only to announce in November that he wasn't going to pursue that path.

"As a simple kid born in the little town of Uvalde, Texas, it never occurred to me that I would one day be considered for political leadership," McConaughey said at the time, in a video posted to social media. "It's a humbling and inspiring path to ponder. It is also a path that I'm choosing not to take at this moment."

This year, McConaughey's cause has been gun control, for obvious reasons. Following the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde in May, McConaughey got an invitation to the White House, where he made a passionate plea from the press briefing room to lawmakers in Congress to pass some gun-control legislation.

After meeting with President Joe Biden, actor Matthew McConaughey talks to reporters during the daily news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on June 07, 2022 in Washington, DC. McConaughey, a native of Uvalde, Texas, expressed his support for new legislation for more gun safety in the wake of the elementary school shooting in his home town that left 19 children and 2 adults dead. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

"Responsible gun owners are fed up with the Second Amendment being abused and hijacked by some deranged individuals,” McConaughey said at the time. “These regulations are not a step back, they’re a step forward for civil society and the Second Amendment."

McConaughey and his wife, Camila Alves, spent time after the shooting with the families of the Uvalde victims, and then met with legislators on both sides of the aisle in Washington to help push for a bipartisan deal.

"You know what every one of these parents wanted, what they asked us for? What every parent separately expressed in their own way to Camila and me? That they want their children’s dreams to live on,” McConaughey said at the White House. “They want to make their loss of life matter.”

The 52-year-old Oscar-winning actor announced in late 2020 that he wasn't making movies "super frequently" anymore, largely because he wasn't getting very good scripts. He's been married to Alves since 2012, and they live in Austin with their three children. The couple started a foundation, called the Just Keep Livin Foundation, which sponsors programs for high school students to "encourage students to make positive life choices that improve their physical and mental health."

Top image: Actor Matthew McConaughey attends the Orange-White Spring Game at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on April 23, 2022 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images)