Robert De Niro was sat in front of a camera and asked a very simple question: “What do you care about?”
De Niro had been enlisted along with a number of other A-list actors to speak in a non-partisan video encouraging people to vote in the 2016 US general election.
But the Raging Bull actor soon veered off script and delivered a scathing summary of his least favourite candidate in the race for the White House, Donald Trump.
Kendall Jenner, Leonardo DiCaprio and Sarah Hyland were among a number of figures who spoke passionately about the issues they believe to be at the heart of the November election: health care, climate change, employment.
Staring directly into a camera, De Niro unleashed a furious rant against Mr Trump in one of the most withering critiques of the Republican nominee yet. His unequivocal response, in full below, did not make the final cut of the #voteyourfuture campaign video.
“He’s so blatantly stupid. He’s a punk, he’s a dog, he’s a pig […] a mutt who […] doesn’t do his homework, doesn’t care. He’s an idiot. Colin Powell said it best: He’s a national disaster. He’s an embarrassment to this country.
“It makes me so angry that this country has gotten to this point that this fool, this bozo, has wound up where he has. He talks how he wants to punch people in the face? Well, I’d like to punch him in the face. This is somebody that we want for president? I don’t think so. What I care about is the direction of this country, and what I’m very, very worried about is that it might go in the wrong direction with someone like Donald Trump. If you care about your future, vote for it.”
Anonymous Content, the company who produced the footage, told The Independent they felt they could not include his film as part of the campaign and still honour the non-partisan nature of the project. However, they believed the video needed to be shared and made the decision to post it online.
“When Robert De Niro came in to shoot his video, he wanted to share his thoughts regarding his feelings for Donald Trump. Tom McCarthy, who directed Mr De Niro’s portion, asked him the same question he asked the other participants: ‘What do you care about?’ This was his response.”
