Robert De Niro Interviewed by Michael Moore: "Trump Is a Punk, a Blowhard and a Buffoon"

By Greg Evans, Deadline

25 December 19

 

obert De Niro famously brought down the house at the 2018 Tony Awards with his blunt “F*ck Trump.” Seems almost quaint now.

“I’d like to see a bag of sh*t right in his face,” De Niro says on the newly launched podcast Rumble with Michael Moore. Then The Irishman actor, in his first podcast interview ever (recorded at the his Tribeca office), takes off the gloves.

“I always say lowlife because he’s a lowlife,” De Niro says of President Donald Trump. “He’s not a pig. I used to call him a pig, but pigs have dignity. He has no dignity, no nothing. He’s a disgrace to the human race, if you will.”

Comparing the president to the murderous mobster Sonny in A Bronx Tale, De Niro says, “The Sonny character, with all due respect, I’d like to think that he has more integrity than someone like Trump. And that’s why we say Trump’s not even a good gangster. He’s just a punk. … He acts like this with that swagger. And he’s just a blowhard, a buffoon.”

Buffoon, maybe, but not a funny one, says De Niro: “I mean, didn’t they laugh at Hitler? Didn’t they laugh at Mussolini? Look how silly they look. Look at Trump, how silly he looks. … He’s a clown — but a dangerous one.”

“It’s not funny anymore,” says Moore.

“It’s not funny anymore,” continues De Niro, adding, “You say, ‘No, it can’t happen here.’ But it will happen.”

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De Niro also addresses the on-air F-bombs he dropped recently on CNN, when Brian Stelter asked about criticism the actor receives on Fox News. .

“I really wanted to say ‘f*ck Fox.’ … This guy [Trump] takes his marching orders from them, in some ways. This is disgraceful. This is Rupert Murdoch. This is what he came to this country to give us.”

And De Niro doesn’t let Trump’s congressional supporters off the hook. “I know I live in New York and I’m living in a certain world,” the actor says. “It’s not out there in the Midwest and other parts of the country. But there’s right and there’s wrong. I know when I see what’s being done, that’s wrong. And those people are supposed to represent us and they are supposed to know and stand up for what’s right in the country, and they’re not doing that.”

“[Kevin] McCarthy, Lindsey Graham. Shame on him. Shame on them. What are their families, what are their grandkids — if they have any, I don’t know — but it’s, it’s, it’s awful.”

De Niro finds one silver lining to Trump, though: “The only thing he’s done, the only contribution I see that he’s given to this country and the world is that he’s taught us that we can never allow it to happen again.”