In January, Meryl Streep took the stage at the Golden Globes to accept a lifetime achievement award and used the opportunity to criticize President Trump for attacks on the free press and the arts. No stranger to criticizing President Trump himself, Robert De Niro used a similar platform Monday to call out the Trump administration’s “mean-spiritedness.”
Speaking at a gala at New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center after receiving the organization’s Chaplin Award for his career in film, De Niro said the “government’s hostility towards art…has jeopardized the film industry.” He continued to express concern, particularly in regard to Trump’s budget cuts to the arts and humanities:
“The budget proposal, among its other draconian cuts to life-saving and life-enhancing programs, eliminates the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. For their own divisive political purposes, the administration suggests that the money for these all-inclusive programs goes to rich, liberal elites. This is what they now call an alternative fact. I call it what it is: Bullsh*t.”
“The administration’s mean-spiritedness towards art and entertainment is an expression of their mean-spirited attitude about people who want that art and entertainment. People also want and deserve decent wages, a fair tax system, a safe environment, education for their children and healthcare for all. I don’t make movies for rich, liberal elites. I’ve got my restaurants for that.”
De Niro went on to say that everyone in the film industry owed it to the memory of Charlie Chaplin, an immigrant, to ensure that the “next Chaplin” is not kept away because of harsh immigration policies.
This is started to look a lot like something out of one of De Niro’s movies.
(via The Wrap)