The Conversation (0)
Joanna Taylor
Aug 17, 2020
Robert De Niro has a long-standing feud with Donald Trump.
The Taxi Driver actor has repeatedly ripped into his fellow New Yorker – and Trump has hit back.
These days, De Niro can't seem to get through an interview without delivering a pithy takedown of the president.
So, in order to celebrate De Niro's 77th birthday today, we've rounded up 6 of the most brutal.
1. Trying to reason with Trump is like arguing with a "crazy relative" who is running the country.
In an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, De Niro slammed the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic. He said:
This whole thing could have been avoided if Trump had listened to the people in the Intelligence community. They kept telling him something was coming.
What scares me is that people were afraid to tell him the truth. If you tell him the truth then he's gonna get mad at you and he's gonna let you go, and then what?
It's crazy. It's like telling a crazy relative... You avoid arguing with them because they're gonna go crazy – but they run the country!
2. "There's nothing redeemable about him."
De Niro is famous for playing what he describes as "inhumane characters", approaching these roles "from their point of view".
But the one part he would never play is Donald Trump, because "there's nothing redeemable about him".
He told The New York Times:
[He] is a person who, to me, has no morals, no ethics, no sense of right and wrong, is a dirty player.
I wouldn’t want to play him. He’s such an awful person. There’s nothing redeemable about him, and I never say that about any character.
3. Trump "thinks he's a gangster" (but he's not a very good one).
When Graham Norton asked De Niro about the appeal of Mafia characters today, De Niro's thoughts turned immediately to Trump. He said:
Today, we kind of have a weird twisted president who thinks he’s a gangster, who's not even a good gangster.
Even gangsters have honour among thieves. You shake a hand and you have your word, that's all you have is your word. They have your word and that's it, [with] this guy [that's] not the case.
Norton then jokingly pointed out he hadn't even brought Trump up.
4. Trump could start a war and stay in office for a third term.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Independent last year, De Niro tore into Trump once again.
Trump cares only about one thing: he wants to be the boss. He will be the boss no matter what it takes.
If he did win the next election, there's definitely more chance of him allowing us to get into a war, and if you're a president in a war, it's more likely you would stay for a third term. Imagine him in a third term.
De Niro is not the only person who has accused Trump of wanting to remain in office for longer than he is legally allowed.
Trump's ex-national security advisor John Bolton claimed in his book The Room Where It Happened that Trump expressed an interest in serving more than two terms to China's president Xi Jinping. His call to delay the election because of "fraudulent" mail-in voting also prompted horrified reactions.
5. Trump is "racist" and a "white supremacist".
In an interview with The Guardian, De Niro expressed concern that Trump's presidency could eventually lead to the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini.
When you see someone like him becoming president, I thought, well, okay, let's see what he does – maybe he'll change. But he just got worse.
It showed me that he is a real racist. I thought maybe as a New Yorker he understands the diversity in the city, but he's as bad as a I thought he was before, and much worse. It's a shame. It's a bad thing in this country.
When asked whether he thinks Trump is a white supremacist, De Niro agreed, but was less certain about labelling him a fascist.
I guess that's what it leads to. If he had his way, we'd wind up in a very bad state in this country. I mean, the way I understand it, they laughed at Hitler. They all look funny. Hitler looked funny, Mussolini looked and funny and other dictators and despots look funny.
What bothers me is that there will be people in the future who seem him as an example. But they'll be a lot smarter and have more colours to their personality and become someone with the same values as he has, but get much further and do more damage as a despot. That's my worry.
6. "F*ck Trump!"
Having repeatedly described his feelings towards Trump in meticulous detail, De Niro had something rather more succinct to say at the Tony Awards in 2018: "f*ck Trump".
This two-word speech earned the Oscar-winning actor a standing ovation.
And, for once, the president took notice, calling De Niro a "very Low IQ individual".
It's definitely gotten the point where interviewers don't even need to ask De Niro for his opinions about politics: he always comes prepared with a furious tirade against Trump.
Despite facing some opposition, De Niro continues to voice his opinions about politics and believes in the power of voting to bring about change.
In 2018, after a number of high-profile Democrats and their supporters including himself, Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden were targeted with suspected pipe bombs, De Niro said:
There’s something more powerful than bombs, and that’s your vote. People MUST vote.
Amen Robert.