Screen icon Robert De Niro on Sunday tore into President Donald Trump at a "Rise Up" event in New York celebrating the First Amendment, and the crowd loved it.
"I'm pretty close to being a free speech absolutist, even speech I don't like, and there's plenty of that around," he said. "So when I hear something I don't like, I use my own free speech to respond."
The two-time Oscar winner then offered some real-world examples. "When I hear Trump say, as he did a few days ago, 'I don't think about Americans' financial situation, not even a little bit,' I say, 'Shut the f*** up,'" he said. The audience cheered wildly at the callback to the "two words" moment in the 1988 classic "Midnight Run."
"On Wednesday, Trump said, 'I love the inflation,'" he said, then asked for some help with the next line. "Now say it with me." De Niro and the audience said it together: "Shut the f*** up!"
He offered one more example. "Trump said he won the 2020 election. Ready?" he said as the room again joined in: "Shut the f*** up!"
De Niro, 82, is a longtime Trump critic and has frequently gotten under the president's skin. Earlier this year, after De Niro countered the State of the Union speech with one of his own, the president called him a "sick and demented person."
De Niro on Sunday said it was difficult to love the United States given what it's become under Trump. "I hate to say it, but loving our country is starting to sound like an abused spouse saying they love their abuser," he said, adding: "I can't love a country that starts stupid and inhumane wars, killing thousands of innocents and indirectly causing the deaths and suffering of millions more. I can't love a country that takes health care away from millions of people and uses that money to enrich their pals in the Trump-Epstein class. I can't love a country that sends out masked militias to shoot citizens in the streets, torture our neighbors, and separate families. I can't love a country that's led by a racist, misogynist, xenophobic tyrant. And let me just say it: I can't love the country that's led by Donald Trump and his sycophant Congress."
De Niro said he's loved his country most of his life. "I want to love my country again," he said. "I want my country back."
