Actor Robert De Niro said Tuesday on ABC’s “The View” that former President Donald Trump and his supporters were filled with anger and hate.
Co-host Sunny Hostin said, “Some people have criticized you, because you’ve been pretty open about your dislike for Mr. Trump and the dangers he poses to democracy. You once famously said you’d like to punch him in the face. But right now he’s leading in the polls in five battleground states. Any advice to the Biden campaign or the voters? What are you thinking?”
Heavily censored, De Niro said, “Well, I think I don’t understand why people are not taking him seriously. Because you read about it historically in other countries that they didn’t take the people seriously. I think of Hitler and Mussolini, ‘Oh, they’re fools and clowns.’ I hear it from some people. I mean, who does not think that this guy is going to do exactly what he says he’s going to do? He’s done it already. And then what? We’re going to sit around and say, what, ‘We told you so?'”
He continued, “It’s going to happen. If he gets elected, it’s going to change this country for everybody. They might think that it’s going to make their life better, or they just want to, excuse my French, they just want to f— with the rest of the country. Literally, those people who support him with anger and hate — because that’s what he’s about — they’re going to see.”
He added, “I used to see these things, I didn’t understand how he and Rosie O’Donnell used to get into it. I didn’t really care. I see what a hateful, mean-spirited, awful thing he is… He’s vicious. Why will he not do that in this country? He’s already done it. When I said I want to punch him in the face, it’s because of what he said to a person, a bystander at one of his rallies. He wants to punch them in the face. You don’t talk that way to people. What kind of person does that?”
De Niro said, “It’s almost like he wants to do the worst that he could possibly do to show this country, to f— with us. His slogan should be ‘F— America, I want to f— America.'”
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg said, “And the other thing is if he becomes president again, he is not going to not stop being president. You understand this? His idea is to stay in until he drops dead.”
De Niro said. “That’s it. He’s not even conceding it now so imagine if he actually did win the election, it’s over. We’re going to have such civil strife. All the things he says, because everybody is now on to him where he projects what he’s saying. It’s what he wants, what he envisions the world to be, which is chaos and craziness, total craziness.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
