Robert De Niro criticized Trump’s threat of film tariffs at Cannes and called him a ‘philistine.’ Here’s a timeline of their 14-year feud.

Robert De Niro told the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday that America is fighting for “the democracy we once took for granted,” in his latest swipe at Donald Trump amid a 14-year feud.

Since 2011, De Niro has criticized Trump’s politics and behavior in interviews, award speeches, and political campaign videos.

Here’s a timeline of De Niro and Trump’s feud.

April 2011: De Niro criticizes Trump for commenting on former president Barack Obama’s citizenship.

Trump and De Niro first exchanged verbal blows in April 2011 after Trump questioned the citizenship status of then-president, Barack Obama.

Trump was one of many celebrity and political figures who began demanding to see Obama’s birth certificate at the time because they wrongly believed he was born in the US.

During an interview with NBC News’ Brian Williams at the Tribeca Film Festival, De Niro criticized those who made this claim.

“A lot of these guys, they’re intentions are not even good. They’re just playing the game. And they’re playing with people’s lives,” De Niro said in 2011 (per The Hollywood Reporter). “It’s crazy. They’re making statements about people that they don’t even back up. Go get the facts before you start saying things about people.”

De Niro confirmed later in the interview that Trump was among the people he was referring to.

Trump hit back a few days on “Fox & Friends,” where he said De Niro was “not the brightest bulb on the planet.”

“I have been watching over the years, and I like his acting, but in terms of when I watch him doing interviews and various other things, we are not dealing with Albert Einstein,” Trump added before doubling down on his demand for Obama to show his birth certificate.

August 2016: De Niro calls Trump “nuts.”

De Niro and Trump’s beef cooled off until Trump became the Republican Party’s candidate for the 2016 presidential election.

While speaking at an event for the 40th anniversary of “Taxi Driver” in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in August 2016, De Niro brought up Trump’s campaign and said the businessman was “totally nuts.”

“It’s crazy that people like Donald Trump, he shouldn’t even be where he is, so God help us,” De Niro said. “What he’s been saying is really totally crazy, ridiculous stuff.”

Fall 2016: De Niro joins the Democrats’ campaign and says he wants to “punch” Trump.

De Niro was one of the many celebrities who supported Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency in the run-up to the 2016 election.

In October of that year, De Niro participated in a video for the #VoteYourFuture campaign to get young people involved but spent most of the video slinging insults at Trump.

“I mean he’s so blatantly stupid. He’s a punk, he’s a dog, he’s a pig, he’s a con, a bullshit artist, a mutt who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, doesn’t do his homework, doesn’t care, thinks he’s gaming society, doesn’t pay his taxes. He’s an idiot,” he said.

De Niro added: “He talks about how he wants to punch people in the face. Well, I’d like to punch him in the face.”

De Niro later told “The View” that the “punch” threat was symbolic and he didn’t actually want to hit Trump.

“I said that because he said that about somebody that he would like to punch them in the face. How dare he say that to the crowd?” De Niro said of Trump.

In the following weeks, De Niro argued publicly with actors Jon Voight and Arnold Schwarzenegger over their support for Trump and spoke out against Trump during a speech at the Hollywood Film Awards.

When Trump was elected in November 2016, De Niro told The Hollywood Reporter that he felt “like I did after 9/11.”

De Niro also told “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” that he won’t punch the president.

“I can’t do that now; he’s the president. I have to respect the position, though we all know what…,” he said, trailing off as a joke. “We have to see what he’s gonna do, and how he’s really gonna follow through on certain things.”

Their feud then cooled off for the remainder of 2016.

2017: De Niro criticizes Trump in speeches and interviews.

In 2017, De Niro took almost every opportunity to fire more shots at Trump.

In January 2017, De Niro appeared in a “United We Stand” rally against Trump, where he joked about the president’s social media rants and criticized his stance on immigration.

“He’s a bad example of this country,” De Niro said of Trump. “We’re all rooting for the new administration, of course, to abandon the divisive, racist, misogynist, ignorant plans it’s trumpeting and lead us with intelligence and compassion.”

In the same month, he told “Today” that calls to boycott Trump’s presidential inauguration were justified.

“I think that whatever people do, they should do it fully because there’s a lot of crazy stuff happening now,” De Niro said.

In May 2017, De Niro used a speech at Brown University as he accepted an honorary doctorate of fine arts to mock Trump.

“When you started school, the country was an inspiring, uplifting drama. You are graduating into a tragic, dumbass comedy,” he said.

During another speech at the Annual Hudson River Park Gala, De Niro called Trump a “motherfucker,” New York Daily News reported.

2018: Trump finally responds to De Niro after further insults.

In March 2018, De Niro called Trump an “idiot” in a speech for an event to celebrate the Fulfillment Fund for promoting higher education.

“He lacks any sense of humanity or compassion,” De Niro said per Variety. “Now I’m not trying to turn this non-political event into a political one, but as long as our country’s leadership is so appalling and so corrupt, I’ll be speaking out at every venue.”

He added: “To be silent in the face of such villainy is to be complicit, and it’s especially appropriate tonight because Trump treats education as a con, a way to make a profit at the expense of the suckers.”

Continuing the sentiment about speaking up against Trump, in June 2018, De Niro said “fuck Trump” while hosting the Tony Awards, and received a standing ovation.

This comment finally garnered a response from Trump.

“Robert De Niro, a very Low IQ individual, has received too many shots to the head by real boxers in movies. I watched him last night and truly believe he may be ‘punch-drunk,'” Trump wrote on X two days after the Tony’s.

“I guess he doesn’t realize the economy is the best it’s ever been with employment being at an all time high, and many companies pouring back into our country. Wake up Punchy!” he continued.

De Niro was also one of several Trump critics who were mailed bombs in October 2018, though police never linked these incidents to the former US president.

De Niro was unfazed and instead responded by encouraging people to vote in the midterm elections.

“There’s something more powerful than bombs and that’s your vote. People MUST vote!” De Niro told Sky News. “I thank God no one’s been hurt, and I thank the brave and resourceful security and law enforcement people for protecting us.”

In 2018, “Saturday Night Live” began featuring regular sketches mocking Trump, with Alec Baldwin portraying the president. De Niro joined these sketches in April, making frequent cameo appearances as Robert Mueller, the special counsel overseeing an investigation into Trump’s election campaign and Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 US elections.

2019: De Niro says Trump’s “impeachment and imprisonment” would make America great again.

In March 2019, Mueller released a report on his investigation into the US 2016 election. The report found that Russian agents “interfered in the presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion” but said there was not enough evidence to accuse Trump’s team of being involved.

However, the evidence within the report kickstarted a campaign to impeach Trump.

De Niro also joined calls for Trump’s impeachment. During a speech at the American Icons Awards in late March, De Niro said Trump’s “impeachment and imprisonment” would make America great again.

In May, De Niro wrote an open letter to Mueller in The New York Times to encourage him to testify against Trump in Congress.

In October, De Niro also told The Guardian at the London Film Festival that he wanted to see Trump jailed after his impeachment inquiry.

“Oh, I can’t wait to see him in jail. I don’t want him to die, I want him to go to jail,” De Niro said.

Trump was impeached in 2019, but for a different investigation, and the president was later acquitted by the Senate.

Throughout 2019, De Niro also threw further insults at Trump, including calling him “too stupid to even know he’s evil,” a “total loser,” a “white supremacist” and a “nasty little bitch.”

2020: De Niro criticizes Trump’s response to the COVID pandemic.

During Trump’s last year in office, the world was hit by the COVID pandemic.

In May 2020, De Niro criticized Trump’s response to the pandemic on BBC Newsnight, saying that the president did not care how many people had died.

“It’s Shakespearean, the whole thing, you’ve got a lunatic saying things that people are trying to dance around,” De Niro said. “They’re doing it in the hearings a little more, trying to say tactfully that this is what will happen, Fauci is doing that.”

De Niro added, referring to Trump: “It’s appalling. He wants to be re-elected. He doesn’t even care how many people die.”

Trump being voted out of office in November 2020 didn’t mean De Niro was done criticizing him.

De Niro told MSNBC in November, after the 2020 election, that he though there would be another “Trump-like” candidate who would be smart enough to trick the public.

“It’s the same playbook as Mussolini, as Hitler, as wannabe dictators,” De Niro said. “It’s all appealing to the worst prejudices, the worst weaknesses of the public and instead of leading them and guiding them and being someone that they can look up to.”

2023: De Niro reignites the feud during the press “Killers of a Flower Moon” press tour.

Ahead of the 2024 election, Variety reported that De Niro compared Trump to the “evil” men in “Killers of a Flower Moon” during a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival for the film.

“There are people who still think he can do a good job. Imagine how insane that is,” De Niro said, referring to Trump.

In October, De Niro missed the Stop Trump Summit in New York City after contracting COVID but said in a video statement: “When I look at him, I don’t see a bad man. Truly. I see an evil one.

“The man who was supposed to protect this country put it in peril, because of his recklessness and impulsiveness. It was like an abusive father ruling the family by fear and violent behavior.”

At the Gotham Film Awards, he brought up Trump again but stalled during his speech and accused Apple, the producer of the movie, of editing what he wanted to say.

“I just want to say one thing. The beginning of my speech was edited, cut out. I didn’t know about it. And I want to read it,” De Niro said before bringing out his phone to read the original speech.

“The former president lied to us more than 30,000 times during his four years … in office, and he’s keeping up the pace in his current campaign of retribution,” De Niro said, referring to Trump. “But with all his lies, he can’t hide his soul.”

De Niro told Rolling Stone that he found out after the event that Apple had tried to ask him to tone down the speech, but he had missed the memo.

Trump fired back at De Niro’s comments in a post on Truth Social.

“Robert De Niro, whose acting talents have greatly diminished, with his reputation now shot, must even use a teleprompter for his foul and disgusting language, so disrespectful to our Country,” Trump wrote.

“De Niro should focus on his life, which is a mess, rather than the lives of others. He has become a total loser, as the World watches, waits, and laughs!” he added.

March 2024: De Niro fires back at Trump’s social media posts.

On “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in March, Kimmel asked De Niro about Trump’s social media posts about him.

“He’s so fucking stupid,” De Niro responded. “Look at the lame, inane things that he said. He’s so stupid he can’t even say anything clever. He’s a fucking moron.”

“He is a malignant narcissist. He’s a socio-psychopath,” he added. “It’s so frightening and scary, and he’s dangerous. We got to get rid of him.”

May 28 2024: De Niro appears in another Democrat campaign video and news conference.

On May 22, De Niro lent his voice to a video for Biden’s presidential campaign.

“Now, he’s running again, this time threatening to be a ‘dictator,’ to terminate the constitution,” De Niro said. “Trump wants revenge, and he’ll stop at nothing to get it.”

On May 28, De Niro appeared at a news conference for Biden’s presidential campaign outside Trump’s hush money trial. At the conference, he said he had joined Biden’s campaign.

“When Trump ran in 2016, it was like a joke. ‘This buffoon running for president? No, never could happen,'” De Niro said. “We’d forgotten the lessons of history that showed us other clowns who weren’t taken seriously until they became vicious dictators.”

De Niro said the new Biden-Harris ad was created to show how Trump uses “violence” against people who stand in his way.

“But it’s a coward’s violence,” he added.

In another interview with the press outside the courthouse, De Niro said: “He’s a monster. He cannot be president of the United States again. Never ever.”

Trump mocked De Niro on Truth Social in response.

“I never knew how small, both mentally and physically, Wacko Former Actor Robert De Niro was,” Trump wrote on Wednesday. “Today, De Niro, who suffers from an incurable case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, commonly known in the medical community as TDS, was met, outside the Courthouse, with a force far greater than the Radical Left – MAGA.”

He added that De Niro looked “so pathetic and sad” and the actor’s brand has “gone WAY DOWN IN VALUE” since he started supporting Biden.

May 30, 2024: De Niro supports New York jury’s decision to convict Trump.

On May 30, Trump became the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime, after he was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.

Trump maintains his innocence.

“It’s as it should be. Justice has been served. That’s it,” De Niro told PageSix, adding that the public must stop Trump from being elected in November.

De Niro told Variety at the time: “This never should have gotten to this stage. I don’t want to be talking, but I am so upset by it. I have to say something. This is my country. This guy wants to destroy it. Period. He’s crazy.

“People are fed up, they’re going to fight back. That’s not what we’re about in this country.”

May 13, 2025: De Niro calls Trump a ‘philistine president’ at the Cannes Film Festival.

De Niro appeared at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival to accept a Palme d’Or lifetime achievement award.

He used his acceptance speech to criticize Trump, and said: “Art looks for truth. Art embraces diversity. That’s why art is a threat.”

Referring to Trump becoming head of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in February, De Niro continued: “That’s why we are a threat to autocrats and fascists. America’s philistine president has had himself appointed head of one of our premier cultural institutions. He has cut funding and support to the arts, humanities, and education.”

The actor also criticized Trump’s recent move to put tariffs on movies made outside the US.

He added: “You can’t put a price on creativity, but apparently you can put a tariff on it. Of course, this is unacceptable. All of these attacks are unacceptable. And this isn’t just an American problem, it’s a global one.

“Like a film, we can’t just all sit back and watch. We have to act, and we have to act now.”

Trump’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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