It was a scenario that Donald Trump, in his pre-presidential celebrity days, might have relished; as he sat inside a Manhattan courtroom, Robert De Niro was waiting outside.
But this was politics and De Niro, the pugnacious star of myriad Hollywood gangster films, was there not to pay homage to the former president as a fellow VIP, but to diss him in terms that might have been in place in Goodfellas or Mean Streets.
The 80-year-old Oscar winner was present outside the New York courthouse where Trump’s hush-money trial was reaching its closing stages on Tuesday as an operative of Joe Biden’s re-election bid, deployed as a proxy while the president’s campaign made its first clear foray into his opponent’s complex legal woes.
Introduced by the Biden campaign communications director, Michael Tyler, De Niro – a vitriolic critic of Trump, who has provided the voiceover for a new 30-second advertisement warning of the perils of his return – adapted to the role with professional aplomb.
“This is my neighbourhood, downtown New York City. I grew up here and feel at home in these streets,” he said, before remarking on the strangeness of Trump being in a courtroom across the street, “because he doesn’t belong in my city”.
The former president and presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee had been tolerated in the Big Apple, said the actor, when he was “just another grubby real estate hustler masquerading as a big shot”.
But now the stakes had been raised and Trump, De Niro explained, had a vision of dictatorial power that had prompted him to step into the political arena, citing the mob violence from Trump’s supporters that accompanied the storming of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.
“That’s why I needed to be involved … in the new Biden-Harris ad, because it shows the violence of Trump,” he said.
De Niro invoked the lessons of Monday’s Memorial Day holiday, held to celebrate the US’s fallen military heroes, and quoted Abraham Lincoln in saying they had died so that “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth”.
Stepping back into Hollywood gangland rhetoric, De Niro warned: “Under Trump, this kind of government will perish from the earth. I don’t mean to scare you. No, no, wait – maybe I do mean to scare you. If Trump returns to the White House, you can kiss these freedoms goodbye that we all take for granted. And elections? Forget about it.”
But arguably the most belittling reference concerned Trump’s taste for political violence, which De Niro dismissed as “a coward’s violence”.
“You think Trump ever threw a punch himself or took one?” he asked. “No way. He doesn’t get blood on his hands. He directs the mob to do his dirty work for him by making a suggestion, an inference.”
The punch reference recalled Raging Bull, the 1980 biopic in which De Niro played Jake LaMotta, the turbulent boxer who was once world middleweight champion.
His depiction of LaMotta’s sometimes menacing persona sprung to mind as the actor bristled at being heckled by a Trump supporter as he introduced two police officers, Michael Fanone and Harry Dunn, who had been present at the Capitol on 6 January 2021 as it was assailed by a mob trying to prevent Congress certifying Biden’s 2020 election victory.
“They lied under oath,” said the out-of-camera-shot heckler, who was heard to add: “They’re traitors.”
De Niro glared, then countered: “Excuse me, they lied under oath. What are you saying? They’re traitors. I don’t even know how to deal with you, my friend.
“They stood there and fought for us, for you … they fought for you, buddy, you’re able to stand right here now. They are the true heroes.”
Fanone, who served as a Washington DC police officer, recounted how he was violently attacked and beaten by members of the mob, one of whom tried to take his firearm. All had been “inspired by lies” told by Trump, he said.
Coming to the microphone after De Niro had left the scene, Trump’s campaign adviser, Jason Miller, ridiculed both Biden and the Hollywood star.
“The best that Biden can do is roll out a washed-up actor – and don’t worry, my remarks will be shorter than The Irishman,” he said, invoking one of De Niro’s later films, directed by Martin Scorsese. “I won’t make you suffer for three hours.”
