Robert De Niro Rips Trump Administration’s ‘Divisiveness’ at Film Festival Premiere

Actor and resistance activist Robert De Niro took aim at President Donald Trump this week, blasting his administration for its “divisiveness” in his remarks during the 18th Tribeca Film Festival’s opening night, according to a report.

De Niro made the remarks as he introduced the HBO-produced The Apollo — a documentary chronicling the historic Harlem music hall.

“Every time I set foot in this hall of art and entertainment I can feel its incredible history,” the actor said before the film’s screening, according to Variety. “In these disturbing times when the administration is promoting divisiveness, and racism, by being here tonight we are making a statement that we reject it.”

“No, you don’t, not in this house, not on this stage,” he added.
Attendees of the premiere included director Roger Ross Williams and music legends Smokey Robinson, and Patti LaBelle.

“The Apollo is home and it’s not only home to Harlem residents, it’s a home and a place of planting seeds for great talent that has gone on to influence the world and shape minds and hearts through the art that’s been created here,” said producer Lisa Cortés. “Oftentimes it’s come out of pain, but that pain has been used to elevate and to use in the best way to change minds and spirits about the human potential. It’s a temple of black genius.”

De Niro is among Hollywood’s most high-profile and vocal Trump critics, whose attacks have even draw scorn from the president himself. The Meet the Fockers star has used a litany of profanities to describe President Trump, previously calling him a “motherfuck,” “jerk-off” and a “white supremacists.” De Niro has also portrayed special counsel Robert Mueller on Saturday Night Live.

Appearing last Friday on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, De Niro mused about placing President Trump in handcuffs and “tak[ing] him away in an orange jumpsuit.”

“We have a wannabe gangster in the White House now,” he said in the sit-down interview taped two days before the release of the long-awaited Mueller report. “Even gangsters have morals; they have ethics, they have a code, and you know, when you give somebody your word that’s all you have is your word, especially in that world. This guy, he doesn’t even know what that means.”