Trump Revives His De Niro Feud — and It’s a Flop

Photo: Laurent Koffel/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Lately Donald Trump has been so focused on attacking GOP primary rivals like “Ron DeSanctimonious” and smearing low-level court employees that he hasn’t had time for a good celebrity feud. Today on Truth Social, he tried to get back to his roots by going after Robert De Niro. But sadly, Trump’s latest beef leaves a lot to be desired.

The latest Trump–De Niro spat started at the Gotham Awards on Monday, November 27. While presenting an honor for the film Killers of the Flower Moon, which he stars in, De Niro suddenly stopped reading from the teleprompter. He explained that he’d realized that part of his remarks had been edited without his knowledge, so he pulled out his phone and read his planned anti-Trump screed.

“Lying has become just another tool in the charlatan’s arsenal,” he said. “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. But with all his lies, he can’t hide his soul.”

De Niro’s speech did not draw a huge amount of attention, as the Gotham Awards only aired on a YouTube stream. Plus, this is old news since De Niro has been publicly blasting Trump for many years; to cite just two famous examples, the actor announced, “I’d like to punch [Trump] in the face,” shortly before the 2016 election and declared “Fuck Trump” during a speech at the 2018 Tony Awards.

Over the years Trump has responded by calling De Niro “a very Low IQ individual,” among other insults. So there was no need for the former president to draw attention to De Niro’s latest tirade. Yet, for unclear reasons, he posted these messages to Truth Social on Monday, a full week after the Gotham Awards incident:

This just shows that much like his nickname game, Trump’s ability to joust with fellow celebrities is slipping. In the past, he has started a posthumous beef with Princess Diana and repeatedly tweeted unsolicited relationship advice to Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. But there’s nothing fresh or weird here except Trump calling De Niro an “animal.” (It seems the insult is styled this way because Trump thinks dehumanizing rhetoric doesn’t count when it’s in quotes, not because he’s making some clever reference to a De Niro role.)

Hopefully Trump will rediscover his knack for getting into delightfully unhinged celebrity drama soon. Oscars season is just getting started and Trump trading barbs with De Niro already feels tired.