Usually in interviews Robert De Niro is a reserved, quiet guy. Get him talking about Donald Trump, and hoo boy. The legendary actor has been on the press trail talking up Killers of the Flower Moon, his 10th film with Martin Scorsese. This coincides with the third presidential campaign of a guy he’s called a “pig” and a “bullsh*t artist” whom he’s wanted to see hit with a “bag of sh*t.” He doesn’t much care for his “stupid” supporters either. While recently chatting with The Guardian, De Niro went a bit longer about his hatred of the GOP’s current prized stallion.
“I see the phenomenon of Trump, the phenomenon of people not standing up to him, people who ought to know better,” De Niro told the outlet. “They’re causing great concern in the country and a lot of anxiety. I feel like since he’s come on the scene – even after being president – it’s like when an abusive parent rules a household, only it’s not just one household it’s the whole country.”
Trump came up a lot during the interview, which concerns De Niro’s role as a charming businessman who may be behind a spate of murders involving the nouveau riche members of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma a century ago. During a press conference before the one-on-one, De Niro went so far as to compare the character he plays the 45th president: two entitled greed monsters who cloak their racism and disregard for anyone outside their blood line in a kindly faux-benevolence.
De Niro also doesn’t think Trump will magically become any kind of beacon for the nation if allowed back at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
“One of the main tasks of being a leader, the responsibility, is to lead,” he said. “Even when the masses are turning in a certain the direction, you have to show them the right way. And that comes down to personal integrity, what you know is right and what you know to be wrong, what you stand for.”
But Trump, De Niro says, doesn’t want to lead. He’s just “doing whatever he can to be the boss,” adding, “He just wants to be in charge. He has no moral center.”
When the interviewer points out that De Niro, usually so collected, gets so worked up when talking Trump, he responded this way:
“It upsets me so much that somebody like him could get so far in our political system … Many New Yorkers were on to what a fool he is, a joke. But when the country started buying it? I mean, he didn’t win by much. He didn’t win the popular vote. She won. But look what happened. What’s scary is it’s such a fragile thing, to swing like that. And the odd thing about Trump is that if he had any brains he could have become president again. But he doesn’t care. He did stupid things. He’s not somebody who should ever be allowed close to leadership in this country again.”
De Niro lamented all the attention Trump gets, though he gets it, saying, “it’s like watching a train wreck. You’re fascinated by it.” He then predicted Trump’s inglorious future. “What will eventually happen is he will die away. He’ll become not even an afterthought. It’s like the pandemic. We had it. Now people are forgetting. And it was only three years ago.”
Killers of the Flower Moon hits theaters on October 20.
(Via The Guardian)