Hollywood icon Robert De Niro, 83, is getting uncharacteristically emotional about his disgust with Donald Trump.
De Niro was the guest on Amy Poehler’s podcast, Good Hang, on Tuesday, and during the interview, Poehler, 54, brought up De Niro’s activism and public criticism of the Trump administration.
“I just personally want to thank you for doing what you do and speaking out in the way that you do about where we are in the world,” Poehler said. “There’s a lot of people that are asked to speak truth to power, and they’re usually members of the margins. There are people that are young and don’t really have as much currency or footing as other people. It’s often people of color. It’s often women.”
Poehler went on to laud De Niro for leveraging his unique position as “the best actor of our generation” to speak up for people’s rights, she said, adding that De Niro’s fame and status as a distinguished Hollywood figurehead mean his words hold tremendous impact.
De Niro stands out among the many “white men of a certain age who have a ton of power and don’t use that responsibility in a way that they could,” Poehler added.
“To see a person like yourself, the age that you are and the status that you are—the best way I can describe it is, it’s like if someone’s giving a terrible speech at a wedding and they’re ruining the wedding, and the wedding is America, and there’s another adult who says, like, ‘We don’t talk like that. That’s not how you’re supposed to treat people. This is insane,’” Poehler said. “It makes everybody feel very safe, and I’ve seen you do it over and over again, and I really appreciate it.”
De Niro began visibly tearing up during Poehler’s comments. “It’s so upsetting to see what’s happening in this country, and it’s so crazy,” De Niro said, wiping away tears, on Good Hang. “In a way, that’s better that it’s so blatant because this will happen again; this guy will influence people, and they’ll come up, and they’ll say, ‘Well, I can do it this way or that way.’ And we have to always be on guard with what’s happening now.”
The Taxi Driver star has been a vocal opponent of MAGA since Trump’s first presidential campaign, slamming the president in various public speeches and interviews. He has also urged people to come together to protest the administration, and he has fired back at MAGA’s efforts to censor media, including Trump’s war on late-night and MAGA’s Kennedy Center takeover.
The actor’s efforts have prompted responses from Trump himself; the president, 80, has called De Niro a “sick and demented person with, I believe, an extremely Low IQ, who has absolutely no idea what he is doing or saying — some of which is seriously CRIMINAL!”
Poehler was quick to respond to De Niro’s tears, joking that she “can’t believe” she made him cry, and that she “feels incredible right now.”
“Hold on,” she told De Niro. “We got to get you your tissues. We got Good Hang tissues for you, Bob.”
De Niro, who has now broken his steely reputation and shed tears in multiple podcast interviews, explained that people can’t let hopelessness make them complacent. Even though it’s easier, he implored people to “have courage,” because courage can be “contagious,” he said.
“You have to fight,” De Niro continued. “You have to fight because if you don’t fight, you’re not going to get anything. You have to fight. You have to join people.”
