Robert De Niro, who features in a video saying he would like to punch Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the face, has now responded to actor Jon Voight who says he is “ashamed” of De Niro’s “ugly rant”.
“I think that Jon Voight, he’s a nice guy, but he’s delusional,” De Niro told Gulf News on Sunday.
The actor, 73, is in Dubai to promote the twin-island country of Antigua and Barbuda as a tourist destination. As a frequent visitor to the Caribbean islands — and an investor of $250million (Dh918.2million) in local tourism — he was invited to speak at a Destination Antigua and Barbuda conference as a ‘special economic envoy’.
Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, also attended and spoke a ballroomful of investors; he said he would like the islands to become the Dubai of the Caribbean.
But De Niro, who sat for a fifteen minute Q&A about his career, politics and business, followed by an intimate media roundtable, spoke sparsely of tourism. He instead fielded questions on the American election and addressed the widely-circulated video of himself, released on Friday, in which he calls Trump a pig, a dog and a mutt.
A NATIONAL DISGRACE
“And another thing — this guy’s a New Yorker, and he’s an embarrassment. I misquoted Colin Powell by saying he’s a national disaster in this video I did. I meant to say, which is what Colin Powell had said, he’s a national disgrace,” he said.
The video went viral at the same time that a leaked audio clip from 2005 of Trump advocating for groping women and “grabbing them by the [expletive]”. Voight said De Niro’s words were more damaging than Trump’s.
“Can you imagine if any Republican said words like Robert DeNiro [sic] used — against Hilary Clinton or Barack Obama? All hell would break loose. I am calling for all Trump supporters to express their outrage and anger against DeNiro,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, De Niro put his weight behind Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
“Hillary — she’s a capable, sane human being … who will run the government, run the country, as well as anybody,” he said. “Hillary is a person who certainly has been through it and deserves to be president and will do a very good job.”
He also said: “You might feel that you don’t trust Hillary about certain things, but she’s a veteran, she’s a grown-up, and she’s very capable of being president.”
De Niro said he was worried about people who assumed that Trump could not be elected president.
“I’m very concerned with him. It’s like, they didn’t think — the same with Brexit. It’s a different climate in the world now. It ain’t over until it’s over. Everybody has to be vigilant to make sure that this guy doesn’t become president. Anyone who’s eligible to vote — get out there. Let’s not win by a margin, let’s make sure that he’s crushed,” he said.
He also said it was shameful that “the Republican Party has rationalised that this guy is sane. That this guy should be president. It’s awful. They’re going to self-destruct. And now I just read in the [New York] Times this morning that 150 Republicans are pulling out. It’s on the front page. How could you align yourself with him?”
De Niro was asked what question he might have for Trump at the latest town hall in America.
“I don’t even know what kind of question to ask him, because he’s so stupid. There’s nothing to talk about,” he said, before reiterating: “I’d love to punch him in the face.”
He urged young voters to visit the polls on November 8 and vote, regardless of whether they felt apathetic about the election.
“I have children who are in their early 20s, and they have to vote. They must vote. Fine, have apathy, but you have to vote. This is a very serious situation,” he said.
He said that the current climate in America, which allowed for Trump to get this far, “shows that people are upset, and they should be, about how they’ve been overlooked. But at the same time, he’s not the answer. Trump is definitely not the answer.”
What’s next for Robert De Niro?
In more lighthearted movie news, De Niro confirmed that he will be reuniting with Christopher Walken on the upcoming film The War with Grandpa. The project will be the pair’s first since the 1978 war drama The Deer Hunter.
“Yeah, I’m very happy about that. We’re friends,” said De Niro of the project.
The family comedy, set for an April release, will based on the 1984 eponymous book, by Robert Kimmel Smith. It’s about a young boy who, upset that he has to share his room with his aging grandfather, decides to wage war to win it back.
De Niro will also appear in The Comedian — a passion project of his that’s been in the pipeline for years — as an insult comic. The film was recently acquired by Sony Pictures Classic, and will be released early next year in order to qualify for the Oscars.
Asked whether he’s excited for people to see it, De Niro said, “Yeah. Let’s see.”
