Sylvester Stallone welcomed Donald Trump to the stage at the president-elect’s event at Mar-a-Lago Thursday night, calling him “the second George Washington.”

The two men shook hands before Trump’s headlining speech at the America First Policy Institute gala, which took place at the president-elect’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Several of the figures Trump has tapped to become cabinet members in his administration, such as Matt Gaetz. , were also present. During the event, it was announced that North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum had been selected to serve as Secretary of the Interior.

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“We are in the presence of a truly legendary character. I love mythology”, Stallone said in his speechafter opening with a lengthy comparison drawing connections between Jesus Christ, his boxer character Rocky Balboa and Trump himself. “No one in the world could have achieved what he achieved. So I’m impressed.

“I’m just going to say this – and I mean it,” Stallone continued. “When George Washington was defending his country, he had no idea that he was going to change the world. Because without him, we could imagine what the world would be like. Guess what? We have the second George Washington. Congratulations!”

In an interview in 2016when Trump emerged as the favorite to win the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, Stallone said Variety“I love Donald Trump. He’s a great Dickensian character. See what I mean?… But I don’t know how that translates to “one laugh, then “run the world.”

Speaking at a Mipcom panel in October following the publication of his book “Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass,” Variety co-editor Ramin Setoodeh recalled Trump expressing jealousy of Stallone during their interviews. While Trump was hosting NBC’s “The Apprentice,” his producer Burnett was also working on “The Contender,” with Stallone as host. Setoodeh shared that Trump would claim that “Sylvester Stallone wasn’t as good at making television” and that he “couldn’t remember his lines, couldn’t convey the words to the prompter.”

“I just think we have to let this sink in: Donald Trump has been president for four years, he has been the leader of the free world for those four years,” Setoodeh said. “What he still obsesses over is the fact that he was a better reality TV star than Sylvester Stallone.”

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