Governor run or no, Matthew McConaughey is full of campaign slogans

Matthew McConaughey is not not running for governor of Texas.

"I am not — until I am," the Oscar winner and best-selling author told NPR host Scott Simon in a live, open-ended forum broadcast on Twitter Spaces on Thursday. "It's got to be personal for me, but it's also got to be the most useful thing for the most amount of people."

McConaughey continued to play with the idea of what it would mean to be "CEO of the state," at a time when he views American politics as a "broken business" divided by politicians whose main goals he said are to preserve their own parties.

Even so, the actor didn't offer much in the way of certainties when he fielded hot-button questions from listeners about his own opinions — except when imparting his signature "bumper sticker" philosophies on life that punctuate his new memoir (or as he likes to call it, an "approach book"), Greenlights.

Pressed on his home state's controversial new abortion law that bans the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy, he said, "I'm more of a choose guy."

A former Amazon employee turned labor rights organizer, Christian Smalls, asked the actor for his take on Amazon workers' push to unionize.

On both counts, McConaughey said that he has some homework to do. He said he's "more concerned with the larger questions of what the hell this politics has become."

As for his political party alignment? He won't exactly say, but instead channeled the independent spirit of a Texan who wants to "balance the ship of democracy."

"I think we're here to lead, not secede," he said of Texans.

Click the audio link to listen to the full conversation. [Copyright 2021 NPR]