Pedro Almodóvar Slams Trump in Fiery Speech at Lincoln Center Honors: ‘You Will Go Down in History as a Catastrophe’

Pedro Almodóvar did not hold back on his opinion of Donald Trump as he accepted the 50th annual Chaplin award from Film at Lincoln Center on Monday evening.

As the celebrated Spanish filmmaker expressed his gratitude for the honor at Alice Tully Hall, he said, “I doubted if it was appropriate to come to a country ruled by a narcissistic authority, who doesn’t respect human rights. Trump and his friends, millionaires and oligarchs, cannot convince us that the reality we are seeing with our own eyes is the opposite of what we are living, however much he may twist the words, claiming that they mean the opposite of what they do. Immigrants are not criminals. It was Russia that invaded Ukraine.”

“Mr. Trump, I’m talking to you, and I hope that you hear what I’m going to say to you,” Almodóvar continued. “You will go down in history as the greatest mistake of our time. Your naiveté is only comparable to your violence. You will go down in history as one of the greatest damages to humanity… You will go down in history as a catastrophe.”

Almodóvar also spoke out about trans rights and talked about the events of his early life that helped form him as a filmmaker.

He also mentioned the blackout that is currently affecting Spain, saying, “I’m very worried about what is currently going on in Spain. As you may know, there is a power outage that is affecting the whole country. So my thoughts are with everyone impacted by this situation.”

Dua Lipa, John Turturro, John Waters, Rossy de Palma and Mikhail Baryshnikov were among the presenters of the honor, which has gone to luminaries from Bette Davis to Cate Blanchett in past years.