De Niro Buries Trump In New York

More of this, please.

Actor Robert De Niro has played a multitude of characters but rarely an outright, two-dimensional villain. Yet, he seems to understand Donald Trump quite well, without any extensive method-acting preparation. The otherwise publicity shy De Niro, who openly supports President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, narrated a new ad from the Biden/Harris campaign that calls out Trump as an unstable wannabe dictator.

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Tuesday, De Niro appeared outside the New York courthouse where Trump is currently on trial and confused about how the law works. (Trump was furious that the prosecution had the last word during closing arguments. Apparently, the “law and order” candidate has never watched Law & Order.) The New York Times claimed that the Biden campaign was “trolling” Trump when it never used those words to describe House Speaker Mike Johnson and his MAGA barbershop quartet showing up to help Trump violate his gag order. One Times headline read “House Speaker Joins Republicans Visiting Trial to Say What Trump Can’t.” That suggests Trump merely had laryngitis when in fact Republican members of Congress were openly helping him break the law.

The Times nonchalantly reported that Johnson “attacked a key witness” [Michael Cohen] in the trial that he claimed, without evidence, was politically motivated. “This is a man who is clearly on a mission for personal revenge,” Johnson said. “He is someone who has a history of perjury. No one should believe a word he says in there.”

Johnson repeatedly insisted that Trump has done nothing wrong and is innocent of all charges against him. However, the Times seems shocked that De Niro went “off script” at Tuesday’s news conference and said the obviously guilty Trump was guilty.

“The fact is whether he’s acquitted, whether it’s hung jury, whatever it is, he is guilty, and we all know it,” De Niro said. “I’ve never seen a guy get out of so many things, and we all know this. Everybody in the world knows this.”

When asked if Trump should go directly to jail, without passing go or Park Place, De Niro said, “I sure do. Absolutely.”

“You know what they say about slugs. They always leave slime in their tracks.”

The Times suggests that “the moment illustrated how difficult it may be for the Biden campaign to navigate its response to a potential verdict, with outside allies far more willing than his disciplined operation in Wilmington, Del., to lob frontal attacks at Mr. Trump over his legal peril.” Well, whatever that sentence meant, I think it’s great to see some plain-speaking for once, no clever subtweeting at Republicans. Instead, let’s have some righteous anger from one of the best actors of the 20th Century.

Former Capitol Police officers Harry Dunn and Michael Fanone joined De Niro, and they all project that hardcore working-class contempt for Trump that we love to see. Fanone, who once voted for Trump, now denounces him as “an authoritarian who answers only to himself.”

Anti-Trump former Republican House Rep. Joe Walsh posted on social media, “This De Niro press conference in NYC this morning outside the courthouse is a stupid idea and not something a campaign that believes it’s winning would do.”

Walsh makes a living these days talking smack about Trump, so I don’t see why he thinks that De Niro can’t do the same for free. He’s a private citizen who grew up in New York and has spent his life giving back to the city rather than stealing from it. Unlike Trump, he didn’t come from wealth. His parents were artists who separated when he was two years old (his father was gay). De Niro’s scripted remarks powerfully convey what New York — and America — means to him, a true patriot.

“This is my neighborhood, downtown New York City,” he said. “I grew up here and feel at home in these streets. I feel comfortable. The Twin Towers fell just over here, just over there. This part of the city was like a ghost town, but we vowed we would not allow terrorists to change our way of life. And we started the Tribeca festival to bring people back. I love this city … I owe this city a lot. That’s why it is so weird that Donald Trump is just across the street. He doesn’t belong in my city. I don’t know where he belongs. But he certainly doesn’t belong here.”

Republicans have argued that no one thought Trump was a racist, sexist creep until he ran for president. De Niro confronts this lie and doesn’t mince words.

We New Yorkers used to tolerate him when he was just another grubby real estate hustler masquerading as a big shot, a two-bit playboy lying his way into the tabloids, pretending to be a spokesman, a spokesperson for himself. He was calling as himself for himself to fool the press and to inflating his net worth. A clown!

But this city is pretty accommodating. We make room for clowns. We have them all over the city. People who do crazy things in the street. We tolerate it and it is part of the culture, but not a person like Trump who will eventually run the country. That does not work and we all know that. Anyway, we make room for clowns. To each his own.

De Niro acknowledges that no one took Trump seriously until it was too late, and now too many people worship the clown prince. “They bought into his bullshit,” he said. “Trump bought their votes with outrageous lies and empty promises. He got the most religious evangelicals to applaud a sinner who bragged about sexual assault and who just a couple of blocks from here, a jury found him liable for sexual abuse.”

The New York native masterfully punctured Trump’s faux strongman image.

“He will use violence against anyone who stands in the way of his greed. But it is a coward’s violence,” De Niro said. “You think Trump ever threw a punch himself or took one? This guy ran and hid in the White House bunker with protestors outside, no way. He doesn’t get blood on his hands.”

Trump is a bully, a coward, and a weakling, but he’s dangerous because he inspires his supporters to commit violent actions in his name. He doesn’t care what happens to them. (Hundreds of January 6 rioters have been sentenced so far.)

“He directs the mob to do his dirty work for him by making a suggestion, an inference, and his gang follows his obvious order,” De Niro said. “It’s no surprise the murder rate and other violent crimes peaked under Trump and are falling under Biden, and now he is promising to use our own military to attack U.S. citizens. That's the tyrant.”

De Niro slams Trump as a mere hoodlum, a petty thug, while reinforcing the fact that he’s also an aspiring dictator. Every elected Democrat should speak this clearly about Trump.

MAGA cultists showed up to heckle De Niro and the brave officers, who they dared call “traitors.”

At one point, Mr. De Niro flashed anger reminiscent of one of his movie characters.

“We’re trying to be gentlemen, the Democrats,” he yelled at the Trump supporters. “You are gangsters — you are gangsters!”

This is ridiculous framing. De Niro wasn’t acting, and this isn’t a movie. If you’re not genuinely angry that Trump is still free to threaten democracy, you’re not taking this seriously.

You can tell that De Niro’s news conference was effective because the Trump campaign could only lash out in the most pathetic manner possible. Jason Miller, one of Trump’s non-indicted campaign advisers, called De Niro a “washed-up actor.” It’s such a weak response it’s not worth a headline or anything. De Niro is a living legend who would deserve our respect even if he’d stopped making movies after Little Fockers, but he just received another Oscar nomination for 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

I’d said that De Niro had never played an outright villain, and yes, I’m even including his performance as Louis Cipher in Angel Heart. He was still classier than Trump, who’ll eventually have his own Johnny Favorite reckoning.

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