Revisiting Robert De Niro’s hilarious take on Donald Trump: “I’d like to punch him in the face”
Let’s be clear, despite Robert De Niro playing some nasty pieces of work across his filmography, the American movie star is not a violent man. Sure, he’s collaborated with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Francis Ford Coppola to depict some truly bloodthirsty characters, but this doesn’t mean he wants to go out into the world and cause a fight with everyone he gives him a dirty look. Well, apart from one iconic figure.
So, who is this villainous figure, you ask? A childhood nemesis? A fellow acting rival? A director who double-crossed him? Whilst these might be more credible answers, the actual figure that De Niro despises the most is the former President of the United States, Donald Trump. Speaking out against the failed businessman-turned-politician ever since the ex-President’s campaign began back in 2016, De Niro has never kept his opinion quiet.
For the Vote Your Future initiative, started during the Presidential campaign, De Niro appeared in a video to state: “He’s so blatantly stupid. He’s a punk. He’s a dog. He’s a pig. A con. A bullshit artist. A mutt who doesn’t know what he’s talking about”.
Going several steps further, he adds: “He doesn’t do his homework, doesn’t care, thinks he’s gaming society, doesn’t pay his taxes, he’s an idiot. Colin Powell said it best, he’s a national disaster, he’s an embarrassment to this country. It makes me so angry that this country has gotten to this point that this fool, this bozo has wound up where he has.
Finally, he concludes: “He talks about how he wants to punch people in the face, well I’d like to punch him in the face”.
This isn’t the only time that the actor has lambasted Trump either, with De Niro having something of a reputation for coming to blows with the ex-President. In an interview with The Guardian, the actor compared him to some of the evilest fascists in history, stating: “If he had his way, we’d wind up in a very bad state in this country”.
Continuing, he adds, “I mean, the way I understand it, they laughed at Hitler. They all look funny. Hitler looked funny, Mussolini looked funny and other dictators and despots look funny”.
Often calling his rivals out as being ‘rats’, De Niro also held issue with the use of this word, drawing from his own experiences in gangster films to explain his point. “I mean, a mob boss calls people ‘a rat’,” the Goodfellas star told the publication, “That means you lied and somebody snitched on you, so you did commit the crime. So that’s interesting, and he makes mobsters look bad because there are mobsters who will shake your hand and keep their word. He can’t even do that”.
Donald Trump has only ever once responded to De Niro, replying in the only tone and format that he knows. Choosing to respond to the actor in a fiery tweet, Trump posted, “Robert De Niro, a very Low IQ individual, has received too many shots to the head by real boxers in movies…I watched him last night and truly believe he may be ‘punch-drunk’”.
Let’s just say, we think De Niro would take Trump’s orange head clean off.
