Robert De Niro Calls Trump a “Coward,” a “Buffoon,” and a “Tyrant” Who “Absolutely” Belongs in Jail

Robert De Niro appeared at a Biden-Harris campaign event on Tuesday, during which he gave a long speech about the upcoming election. But the actor’s remarks were less about the current president and more about Donald Trump, who, according to De Niro, is a toxic mix of coward, clown, and Mob-boss-esque tyrant who must be stopped at all costs.

Speaking outside the Lower Manhattan courthouse, where closing arguments in the hush money criminal trial against Trump took place, De Niro told reporters Trump “doesn’t belong in my city,” which used to “tolerate him when he was just another grubby real estate hustler masquerading as a big shot.” Noting that “this city is pretty accommodating,” and “make[s] room for clowns,” De Niro stressed that, quite obviously, that is no longer the case.

Trump, the actor said, “wants to destroy not only the city, but the country…and eventually he could destroy the world.” Turning to the attack on the Capitol that the then president incited on January 6, 2021, De Niro highlighted Trump’s unending appetite for violence and then said something that the former guy will undoubtedly be ranting about on Truth Social for days and weeks to come. “It’s a coward’s violence,” De Niro told reporters. “You think Trump ever threw a punch himself, or took one? This guy who ran and hid in the White House bunker when there were protesters outside? No way. He doesn’t get blood on his hands, no he doesn’t, he directs the Mob to do his dirty work for him by making a ‘suggestion,’ an inference, and his gang grovels and follows his obvious order.”

De Niro added that “it’s no surprise the murder rate and other violent crimes peaked under Trump and are falling under Biden, and now he’s promising to use our own military to attack US citizens. That’s the tyrant, that’s the tyrant he’s telling us he’ll be…. When Trump ran in 2016 it was like a joke, this buffoon running for president…. We’d forgotten the lessons of history that showed us other clowns who weren’t taken seriously until they became vicious dictators…. This is the time to stop it by voting him out once and for all. We don’t want to wake up after the election saying, ‘What, again? My God, what the hell have we done?’”

Later, in a series of unscripted remarks, De Niro said of Trump’s legal situation, “The fact is, whether he’s acquitted, whether it’s hung jury, whatever it is, he is guilty—and we all know it. I’ve never seen a guy get out of so many things, and we all know this. Everybody in the world knows this.” Asked if he thought the ex-president should be in jail, De Niro responded, “I sure do. Absolutely.”

Naturally, none of this went over well with Team Trump, with a senior adviser to the campaign telling the Times, “The Biden folks have finally done it. After months of saying that politics had nothing to do with this trial, they showed up and made it with a campaign event.”