Pure evil': Robert De Niro unleashes on Donald Trump

Over the last eight years, we've heard you talk about the former president. You have called him a fraud, a con artist. You've said he's a New Yorker like you, and you have watched this brand of BS for decades. And despite that, he became president. And now we're watching him 10 blocks from where we are right now, sitting in a courtroom as a criminal defendant. What do you think about that? I think of how absurd it is. And this might be the one case where that could be it for him. It's a state case. It's the least important in many ways. And yet it's the one that could be tried and finished in well enough time for people to just take that in. Does it give you some sense, not of joy, but of relief at least, that he's potentially facing some consequences? Because as you've said before, this guy's a con artist, and he's gotten away with it for years. No, he's more than that to me. He's sick. He is really, genuinely a sick person that somehow has been allowed into our system. And I'm not calling him, I'm tired of calling him names. He just can't be anywhere near the office of the presidency. You've played a lot of bad guys. Would you ever play Donald Trump? Never. There's nothing about him, there's not one redeeming thing in him that I can see ever, ever. And it's funny, I was just thinking that he actually became president. He could have done good things. Instead, he just, he had to do it all wrong. He's so, as we all know, so narcissistic and self-centered. What do you say to those who say, I don't like the guy, but I'm going to vote for him? What's your message to them? I don't understand it. I don't think they understand how dangerous it will be if he ever, God forbid, becomes president. I don't think they really understand. And historically, from what I see, even in Nazi Germany, they had it with Hitler. They don't take him serious. He looks like a clown, acts like a clown. Mussolini, same thing. These guys, I don't know why, they look like clowns. They somehow, people, that element of society identifies in some ways with them. But it would be chaos beyond our imagination. There's no mystery about him. He's right out front. And what he says is what it'll be if he becomes president. Do you think our democracy is at risk in this election? I think that it is. I always keep saying, democracy is great, of course. But democracy, people take for granted. It's a word that some people don't even understand. They take it for granted. It's about right and wrong, period. The guy's a monster. He is beyond wrong. It's almost like he wants to do the most horrible things that he can think of in order to get a rise out of us. I don't know what it is, but he's been doing it and doing it. And it's scary. Do you have any concerns for the future of the arts? If you were to become president, he has already said he wants to go after his enemies. He wants to go after journalists and the news media. What about your industry? I believe he will. The only thing that I would think is that what will happen is that he'll go after these things like he always impulsively and he'll be stopped. There'll be pushback, a lot of it, and there might be as much pushback as needed, like in the streets, conflict that could happen, civil strife. But he will try it. You have no upside in having this conversation, in speaking out against Donald Trump. You are making yourself a target. The interview will air and he will immediately find a reason to talk bad about you in public. But you're choosing to use your platform to do so. What do you say to other celebrities who don't want to alienate part of their fan base, don't want to step in harm's way, but they have similar megaphones that you do? The idea to be bullied at my age by someone like this is not happening. I'm pretty sure you were never bullied. No, you know, as a kid, sometimes this, that, but the point is not, and for the country, no. And I think other people are going to have to stand up and just, because it's either that or you're going to find yourself in a situation that's so terrifying. We always hear about people from Eastern Europe, the Jews from other parts of Eastern Europe, from Western Europe coming over, look what happened with France, with the Nazis and so on. And they come over and you hear these and they, and when I was a kid, they'd say, you don't really appreciate this country. You know, you don't really appreciate what we, what we know from experience. Imagine what those people went through. I'm just starting to see it. You know, as a kid, I said, Hitler, it's a nightmare that never would happen. But now I see that it's possible. And what those people, and sometimes I run into some people who are close to my age, from Eastern European countries or even Nazi Germany. And you know, they, you understand it. Did you ever care this much about politics? No, I don't. I mean, I'm not, I'm sort of not indifferent, but not, it's not my, but I'm so angry about what's going on. I don't see how it can be avoided. Do you think Joe Biden's the right guy? We don't have a choice. And I think he is the right guy. He's a good guy. He's trying to do the right thing. And we don't have a choice. And I say that in a very positive, good way. Then what would be your message to President Biden? Keep up the fight, keep at him, go at him hard. And every chance you get, go at him, go at him, because people, they take notice of that stuff. And don't be, he's not afraid, but he's doing what he should do. He knows that. That's the only way. I use figuratively when I say punch him in the face, go at him. A bully, you punch in the face. Trouble with Trump is he's not just a bully, he's a stupid bully. You warned America about who Donald Trump was in 2016. You're a lifetime New Yorker, so is he. And you said the country does not realize who this fraudster is and not enough people listened. Do you think they'll listen now? I hope to God they do because they don't, if it goes the other way, I keep saying this, you will see things that like you'll see, it's like invasion of the body snatchers. You'll see people you knew or you thought you knew all of a sudden changing, all of a sudden going with that side, either for self-preservation because they actually believe it or they're deluding themselves or whatever. But then when that happens and you walk into a restaurant, you see people you used to know and all of a sudden they're just not opposing it. They're going with the flow and that's even more scary, insidious, I guess if you say it like that, and ultimately just depressingly disappointing. There has to be a time when you have to say, okay, that's it. No, we're not doing that. We're not allowing that to happen. And this is the time in this country for that to happen. Then this moment is about decency and democracy to you? It's decency and right and wrong and democracy follows. You have to know how to behave in order to make the democracy work.