Robert De Niro breaks down in tears as he makes bold claim about Donald Trump's presidency
Topics: Robert De Niro, Donald Trump, US News
Callum Jones
Featured Image Credit: Antonio Masiello/Getty Images
Topics: Robert De Niro, Donald Trump, US News
Robert De Niro appeared emotional after calling on Americans to 'resist' Donald Trump and his administration.
The Hollywood actor, who has long been a critic of the president, appeared on The Best People With Nicole Wallace podcast recently and claimed Trump is 'destroying' America.
"The story is our country, and Trump is destroying it, and who knows what his reasons are, but it’s sick, it’s f***** up," the 82-year-old said, before adding: "We have to save the country."
De Niro then went on to call Trump an 'enemy of this country', then added: "Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s that simple. Everybody has to stick together to get them out and get back on track."
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The filmmaker continued to voice his concerns about the Trump administration and reiterated the word 'resist'.
"That’s the only way. There’s no magic. There’s no nothing – people are not going to go away, even if Trump dies for some reason by having an illness or something," he added. "Parts of that movement are still there, and that’s the scary part. It has to be neutralized by the people."
De Niro then appeared emotional during the podcast appearance after Wallace praised him for always 'lifting up everybody around you' in a reference to his 1981 Academy Award acceptance speech for Raging Bull, for which he won Best Actor.
"You have to — you have to lift people up," De Niro said as he began to choke up. "You have to bring them together. Period. You can’t divide people. You can’t win that way."
Explaining that current circumstances are a 'no-win situation', the Taxi Driver star added: "Look what we have, look who we have there, it’s almost like a destiny to have this thing there, destroying… attempting to destroy this country and maybe not even understanding why.
So it’s up to us to protect the country."
It's not the first time De Niro has hit out at the Trump administration after the actor appeared in a video shared by political activist group Indivisible in October 2025.
As per Variety, De Niro said in the TikTok clip: "Americans decided they didn’t want to live under the rule of King George III. They declared their independence and fought a bloody war for democracy. We’ve had two and a half centuries of democracy since then. Often challenging, sometimes messy, always essential.
"Now we have a would-be king who wants to take it away: King Donald the First. F**k that. We’re rising up again, this time, nonviolently raising our voices to declare: No Kings."
In 2023, prior to the 2024 presidential elections, the Taxi Driver star branded Trump 'evil' and 'a wannabe tough guy with no morals or ethics', as he claimed the former businessman 'tries to be [a gangster], but he can’t quite pull it off'.
During a pre-election video in 2016, he also described Trump as 'blatantly stupid' and a 'bulls*** artist', adding: "A mutt who doesn’t know what he’s talking about."
In a recent interview with The Guardian in May, the father of seven said the President was a 'bully' and 'you can’t let bullies win'.
Trump has similarly pulled some punches against the Cape Fear star. During his appearance at the Tony Awards in 2018, De Niro took the opportunity in his speech to say 'F*** Trump', which received a standing ovation from the crowd.
However, the 79-year-old later tweeted about De Niro, describing him as 'a very Low IQ individual', adding: "I watched him... and truly believe he may be 'punch-drunk."
In 2024, Trump branded the Joker star 'wacko' following De Niro's appearance at a Manhattan courthouse to speak on behalf of former President Joe Biden's campaign, amidst Trump's hush money trial, of which he was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
On Truth Social, he wrote about De Niro: "I never knew how small, both mentally and physically, Wacko Former Actor Robert De Niro was.
"Today, De Niro, who suffers from an incurable case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, commonly known in the medical community as TDS, was met, outside the Courthouse, with a force far greater than the Radical Left – MAGA."