It appears that Robert De Niro has really gotten under Donald Trump‘s skin.
The former president of the United States took to his social media platform, Truth Social, just after midnight on Wednesday to rail against the Hollywood actor, after De Niro made a surprise appearance outside Trump’s hush-money trial Tuesday.
“I never knew how small, both mentally and physically, Wacko Former Actor Robert De Niro was,” Trump wrote in a late-night post.
“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,” Trump continued, using the made-up condition, “TDS,” which he and his supporters use to belittle critics.
The fired-up former president used all-caps to attack De Niro, writing that his “movies, artistry, and brand have gone WAY DOWN IN VALUE,” and called his appearance outside the courthouse “pathetic and sad.”
De Niro, accompanied by two Capitol police officers, Harry Dunn and Michael Fanone, showed up outside the lower Manhattan courthouse Tuesday to speak at a press conference organized by President Biden’s campaign team.
As Dunn and Fanone, both who were injured during the Jan. 6, 2021 riots, spoke of the dangers of a repeat Trump presidency, at least 20 Trump supporters clad in “Make America Great Again” gear chanted “F— Joe Biden” and waved flags from a nearby park.
De Niro, a longtime vitriolic critic of Trump, laid into the Republican presidential nominee, calling him “just another grubby real estate hustler masquerading as a big shot.”
“I don’t mean to scare you. No, wait, maybe I do mean to scare you,” De Niro told reporters. “If Trump returns to the White House, you can kiss these freedoms goodbye that we all take for granted.”
The Goodfellas actor cast himself as the true New Yorker and mocked Trump’s history of sometimes-unsuccessful business ventures and self-promotion, saying Trump was looking to “destroy” the city.
“I love this city. I don’t want to destroy it. Donald Trump wants to destroy not only the city but the country, and, eventually, he could destroy the world.”
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He also unleashed on one out-of-shot heckler, who claimed officers on site Jan. 6 “lied under oath.”
“Excuse me, they lied under oath? What are you saying? They’re traitors? I don’t even know how to deal with you, my friend,” De Niro countered, angrily. “They stood there and fought for us, for you. … They fought for you, buddy. You’re able to stand right here now. They are the true heroes.”
Biden’s team has largely ignored Trump’s legal issues in recent months, but decided to capitalize on the most recent hush-money trial, which is wrapping up and a verdict is expected soon.
A top Biden adviser said they weren’t there to talk about the trial — De Niro and the officers didn’t reference the sordid criminal case directly — but rather to exploit the large media focus on the legal proceedings.
“We’re not here today because of what’s going on over there,” Biden campaign communication director Michael Tyler told reporters, gesturing toward the courthouse. “We’re here today because you all are here.”
Both Fanone and Dunn spoke of their personal experiences on Jan. 6, with Fanone describing his injuries suffered at the hands of the mob of Trump supporters seeking to halt Congress’ certification of Biden’s 2020 presidential victory.
“I came here today to remind Americans of what Donald Trump is capable of and the violence that he unleashed on all of Americans on Jan. 6, 2021,” Fanone said.
“Americans need to wake up. This is not a drill,” said Dunn, a former Capitol police officer who ran unsuccessfully for office in Maryland. “We can’t count on these institutions to stop Donald Trump. It’s going to take us Americans at the ballot box to defeat him once and for all.”
Despite Trump’s late-night posting spree about De Niro and what he called a “KANGAROO COURT” of a trial, he still had more to say Wednesday morning ahead of the ongoing court proceedings.
“And then they have a protest with Robert De Niro yesterday – he’s a fool, he’s a broken down fool…and he got MAGA’d yesterday. He got a bit dose of it,” Trump told cameras.
De Niro has been an outspoken Trump critic for years.
“He’s so blatantly stupid. He’s a punk, he’s a dog, he’s a pig, he’s a con,” he said ahead of the 2016 election, according to HuffPost.
— With files from The Associated Press
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