Robert De Niro on Tuesday trashed Donald Trump’s floundering handling of the coronavirus pandemic, slamming the president as a “lunatic” who “doesn’t even care how many people die” so long as he wins the 2020 election.
“It’s appalling, it’s appalling,” the movie star and fierce Trump critic told Emily Maitlis, the host of the BBC’s “Newsnight” show, of the White House response to the public health crisis. The virus has so far killed more than 83,000 people in the U.S. and upwards of 290,000 worldwide.
Maitlis suggested to De Niro that Trump’s base would “presumably take issue with you saying he doesn’t care about deaths or what happens to American lives and they will vote for him again.”
De Niro responded with a reality check on what he believes Trump really thinks of his supporters:
No. He doesn’t care for those people and the people who he pretends to care about are the people he has the most disdain for, because he could care less about them. They might like to tell themselves that or delude themselves, but he doesn’t care about them.
Check out the interview here:
De Niro has in recent years rarely passed up a chance to call out Trump in public. In January, he condemned the president’s “abuse of power” during his Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award acceptance speech.
He’s also fantasized about a bag of feces hitting the president in the face and likened the Trump era to “living in an abusive household.”
- Stay up to date with our live blog as we cover the COVID-19 pandemic
- What happens if we end social distancing too soon?
- What you need to know about face masks right now
- Will there be a second stimulus check?
- Lost your job due to coronavirus? Here’s what you need to know.
- Why it takes so long to make a coronavirus vaccine
- Parenting during the coronavirus crisis?
- The HuffPost guide to working from home
- What coronavirus questions are on your mind right now? We want to help you find answers.
- Everyone deserves accurate information about COVID-19. Support journalism without a paywall — and keep it free for everyone — by becoming a HuffPost member today.