Earlier this year, the Media Research Center had a meltdown over acting legend Robert De Niro having some unkind words for Donald Trump and pointing out his authoritarian tendencies, though it made no effort to rebut anything he said. When De Niro showed up outside the New York courthouse where Trump was on trial, the meltdown continued. Mary Clare Waldron whined in a May 28 post that De Niro engaged in an “unhinged doomsday monologue”:
On Tuesday morning, outside the New York City courthouse, where Trump’s trial was taking place, actor Robert De Niro spoke with the Biden Campaign regarding the defendant. De Niro recently participated in an already controversial ad for the Biden campaign (now unlisted on YouTube), pinning extreme accusations on the Republican, yet this speech truly highlighted the doomsday fear-mongering which was classic amongst Trump critics.
Trump and several of his supporters have often spoken before and after the court sessions, allowing a lot of media coverage and now the Biden Campaign decided to take advantage of this media opportunity as well. De Niro has emerged as the typical politically charged celebrity and he, again, stuck to the doomsday theme, condemning Americans for electing Trump in 2016,
[…]“We’d forgotten the lessons of history that showed us other clowns who weren’t taken seriously until they became vicious dictators.”
Not all were pleased with De Niro’s tactics, as spectators interjected, and car horns began to interrupt the actor until he had finished speaking.
Waldron made no attempt to rebut anything De Niro said. Sarah Butler complained about De Niro’s links to the Biden campaign in a May 29 post:
On Tuesday, CNN’s Laura Coates failed to understand how actor Robert De Niro’s appearance in New York was a political move by the left. De Niro spoke outside the courthouse as closing arguments in Donald Trump’s trial began. The day before he appeared in New York, he starred in a new Biden Campaign released a new advertisement which criticized Trump.
Coates began by playing two clips. The first was of De Niro claiming, “I love this city. I don’t want to destroy it. Donald Trump wants to destroy not only the city, but the country. And eventually, he could destroy the world. That’s the tyrant he’s telling us he’ll be. And believe me, he means it.”
The second was of Donald Trump Jr., “This is a political persecution. That was evidenced today, today by the Biden campaign themselves holding a rally here. They bring in Robert De Niro.”
Despite his affiliation with the Biden Campaign, Coates did not see anything political about it, “But you also had Republicans having rallies outside the courthouse as well. And De Niro, last I checked, is actually not an elected official.”
Though this may be accurate, he did narrate a Biden campaign advertisement the day before he spoke in New York. In the ad, De Niro said “Trump wants revenge and he will stop at nothing to get it.”
This ad made De Niro’s political affiliation quite clear to anyone who saw it.
She did not elaborate on how voters are being intimidated yet continued to show support to the Biden administration for sending De Niro to speak in New York.
Butler also didn’t dispute the accuracy of anything De Niro said.
In an unrelated attack on De Niro, Christian Toto spent his June 1 column repeating an actor’s whining that a trigger warning was added to “Goodfella,” the 1990 film that starred De Niro:
“Goodfellas” actor Frank Sivero isn’t a household name, but this week he shamed his famous peers.
The veteran actor came to the defense of the 1990 mob classic starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and the late Ray Liotta. Director Martin Scorsese’s film is considered one of his film canon’s highlights, on par with the greatest mobster stories ever told.
AMC added a trigger warning to the film and several others in 2020 during the rise of Black Lives Matter. News of the “Goodfellas” warning went viral earlier this month.
“This film includes language and/or cultural stereotypes that are inconsistent with today’s standards of inclusion and tolerance and may offend some viewers.”
Sivero, who plays mob enforcer Frankie Carbone in the drama, lashed out at AMC during an interview with TMZ.
“I’m kind of a little bit perturbed in a way, that AMC that even, AMC even cuts the movie completely, you don’t hear the language, they delete the language, so why are they so upset?”
“I’m a little perturbed because thank God I was able to do my job by improvisation. I created that, I made those moments real, to take the tension away from those gruesome moments.”
It’s irrelevant how “real” Silvero made those moments in the movie if they can still be considered offensive. It’s bizarre that he and Toto are mad that AMC wants to alert people to the movie’s content when doing so makes for a more informed movie consumer. Further, neither Toto nor Silvero seem to understand that AMC is a basic cable channel and, as such, there are limits on what it can show, and the language, violence and nudity that are in “Goodfellas” are issues. Full and uncut versions of the movie are available on home video and streaming services, as has always been the case.
Toto concluded by grousing about De Niro’s political opinions:
We know where the “Raging Bull” actor is these days. He’s on the streets of New York City ranting about a second Donald Trump presidency. It’s embarrassing on many levels, including why an A-list actor’s views on the presidential race warrant outsized attention.
Why won’t De Niro spare a syllable about “Goodfellas” and an artist’s right to offend? It’s not for a lack of microphones around him.
On the other hand, Toto believes that C-list actors like Adam Carolla deserved to have their right-wing opinions given outsized attention.