Appearing Tuesday on BBC’s Newsnight, Hollywood star Robert De Niro attacked President Donald Trump’s response to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, calling him a “lunatic” with no regard for how many Americans die of the disease.
A transcript is as follows:
EMILY MAITLIS: Why do you think [Trump administration officials] are not speaking out? You think they can do more good if they keep quiet and help, scientifically, rather than putting their necks on the line?
ROBERT DE NIRO: No, and I understand that. That’s, of course, the logic, the rationale. But it’s like Shakespearean the whole thing. You’ve got a lunatic saying things that people are trying to dance around. Whereas, at one point, and they are doing this in the hearings a little more, trying to say tactically that this is what will happen. Fauci is doing that. It’s appalling. He wants to be reelected. He doesn’t even care about how many people die
MAITLIS: Trump has given himself a platform because he is the democratically-elected president of the U.S. and his fan base would presumably take issue with you saying he doesn’t care about deaths or about what happens to American lives, and they will vote for him again.
DE NIRO: No, he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care for those people and the people 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 to delude themselves, but he doesn’t care about them.