Jake Paul, the widely followed social media star who’s become a professional boxer, has endorsed Donald Trump and is urging his followers to vote for the candidate — even though he himself is unable to vote in the 2024 U.S. presidential election because he now lives in Puerto Rico.
In a YouTube video posted Thursday, Paul told viewers they should “do your own research” and that they shouldn’t base their voting decision on “your favorite pop star telling you to vote a certain way.” But he said he was hoping to encourage undecided viewers to vote for Trump to “quite literally save America.”
Paul, 27, compared Trump’s felony convictions to the situation faced by America’s founding fathers in their fight for independence from the British crown. In May, a federal jury in New York found the former president guilty of 34 felony counts related to false invoices, checks and ledger entries over his hugh-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
“Trump is labeled a ‘felon,’ but remember, the founders of this country were seen as felons by Britain because they demanded change,” Paul said in the video. “History shows that sometimes those who challenge the system are the ones who make a difference.”
“To be frank, I’m not concerned with Donald Trump’s ‘character flaws’ or what he’s done in the past,” Paul said. “What I’m concerned with is how good a president is he, because that is his job and that’s what’s going to affect the people of this nation.”
Paul is set to fight Mike Tyson in a livestreamed boxing match on Netflix, with the event starting at Nov. 15 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT from the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. “I’m putting my business, my career on the line during my peak going in to fight Mike Tyson… because I don’t give a fuck what the consequences are,” Paul explained. He acknowledged he was “nervous” and “scared” to make the video because of “what it means for my career, my life, people coming after me, more accusations, more turmoil, more division potentially.”
In the nearly 19-minute video, Paul addressed the comment made by Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump’s Oct. 27 rally at Madison Square Garden that Puerto Rico was “a floating island of garbage.” Hinchcliffe “made a bad joke,” Paul said, adding that “him talking smack about Puerto Rico was not funny, and I wanted to shine a light on the fact that these are not Donald Trump’s views,” Paul said, calling the island “the most beautiful place on Earth” and that “the people here are absolutely incredible.”
Trump has engaged in a strategy of reaching out to young male voters. Last week, he appeared on Joe Rogan’s popular “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast and in June Trump recorded a podcast with Logan Paul, who is Jake’s older brother.