Robert De Niro became emotional during a recent appearance on the “The Best People With Nicole Wallace” podcast, where the Oscar-winning actor urged people to “resist” President Donald Trump and his administration.
“The story is our country, and Trump is destroying it, and who knows what his reasons are, but it’s sick, it’s fucked up,” he said. “We have to save the country.”
De Niro then described Trump as the “enemy of this country,” adding, “Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s that simple. Everybody has to stick together to get them out and get back on track.”
Throughout the podcast interview, De Niro repeatedly called on Americans to oppose Trump’s administration.
“People have to resist, resist, resist, resist, 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 said at one point. “Parts of that movement are still there, and that’s the scary part. It has to be neutralised by the people.”
Toward the end of their conversation, Wallace referenced De Niro’s 1981 Academy Award acceptance speech for “Raging Bull.” She noted how he “thanked everybody” and that he’s “always about lifting up everybody around you.”
When asked, “Why is that?” De Niro began to choke up. “You have to — you have to lift people up,” he said, his voice cracking. “You have to bring them together. Period. You can’t divide people. You can’t win that way.”
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He continued, “It’s a no-win situation, and 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.”
Robert De Niro is among the Hollywood figures who have been outspoken in their criticism of Trump. In October 2025, the actor appeared in a video shared on the TikTok account of the political activist group Indivisible, encouraging people to attend the No Kings protests.
“The original No Kings protest was 250 years ago,” De Niro said. “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.”
He continued, “Now we have a would-be king who wants to take it away: King Donald the First. Fuck that. We’re rising up again, this time, nonviolently raising our voices to declare: No Kings.”
Watch De Niro’s full conversation on the “The Best People” podcast below.
From Variety US