Actor Robert De Niro became emotional during an appearance on Amy Poehler’s podcast, “Good Hang,” after the former “Saturday Night Live” star praised him for his frequent public criticism of President Donald Trump.
Poehler interviewed De Niro for about an hour, with the conversation turning near the end to his history of speaking out against Trump.
“I just personally want to thank you for, like, doing what you do and speaking out in the way that you do about where we are in the world,” Poehler said. “There’s a lot of people, um, that are asked to speak truth to power and they’re usually, you know, members of the, like, the margins. There are people that are young, don’t really have as much um currency or a footing as other people. It’s often people of color. It’s often women. And to see a person like yourself, the age that you are and the status that you are, it reminds me of the best way I can describe it is when it’s like if someone’s giving a terrible speech at a wedding and they’re ruining the wedding.”
She continued: “And the wedding is America and, and there’s another adult who says like, ‘We don’t talk like that. That’s not how you’re supposed to treat people. This is insane.’ It makes everybody feel very safe and so I’ve seen you do it over and over again and I really appreciate it.”
De Niro began tearing up in response. Poehler added, “It means a lot to a lot of people cuz you’re standing up for a lot of people who don’t have the power to do that. So, thank you, Bob. And thanks for doing it over and over again. And this is going to be a real switcheroo because I can’t believe I just made you cry. I feel incredible right now. Hold on. We got to get you your tissues.”
As De Niro wiped his eyes, Poehler said men, particularly white men “of a certain age,” often fail to use their influence to speak out. “There’s not a lot of men who, uh, in your position who do that and, uh, white men of a certain age, like who who frankly, you know, have a ton of power and don’t use that responsibility in a way that they could. So, thank you,” she said.
De Niro responded, “It’s so upsetting to see what’s happening in this country, and so crazy. It’s not like it’s I mean, in a way that’s better that it’s so blatant because this will happen again and, and this guy will influence people. They’ll come up and say, ‘Well, I can do it this way or that way.’ And we have to always be on guard with, with uh what’s happening now.”
He went on to describe his approach to public criticism of Trump. “You have to fight. You have to fight because if you don’t fight, you’re not going to get anything. You’re not going to and you have to fight. You have to join people. I just I use this example Jason Crowe saying, um, that the courage is, is contagious,” De Niro said.
He added, “Uh, and and uh you know the other thing can the negative feelings can be contagious too but why not have courage and be contagious and stand up and they might find out it’s not so difficult and and people will stop the nonsense that they’re doing. Uh, it’s it’s just out of control.”
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