Robert De Niro Says ‘We Can’t Let Up’ the Fight Against Trump Because ‘He Does Not Want to Leave the White House’: ‘There’s No Other Way to Face a Bully’

Robert De Niro is telling Americans to keep protesting against Donald Trump.

After Saturday’s nationwide No Kings protests, De Niro told MSNBC that the country needs to show “much more” resistance, because that’s “the only thing the politicians are going to recognize.” He added that we need to make lawmakers “more afraid of the wrath of the people” than the “wrath of Trump.”

“We can’t let up,” De Niro said. “Cannot let up on him because he is not going to leave the White House. He does not want to leave the White House. He will not leave the White House. Anybody thinks he, oh, he’ll do this, he’ll do that, it’s just diluting themselves.”

He added, “The Republicans, most of all, because they know, but they’re going along with it. It’s a classic bully situation. We see it, and there’s no other way to face a bully. You have to face him and fight it out and back them off and back him down. That’s the only way this is going to work.”

The Oct. 18 No Kings protests were joined by nearly 7 million people, according to MSNBC. ICE’s aggressive immigration crackdown remains a key issue in the nationwide demonstrations, as they were during the first No Kings protests in June. National Guard presence in major cities and sweeping cuts to federal programs were also major motivators for participants.

De Niro was one of the many Hollywood mainstays to speak out in support of the No Kings movement. On Oct. 9, he appeared in a video on the TikTok account of political activist group Indivisible to encourage people to attend the No Kings protests.

“The original No Kings protest was 250 years ago,” De Niro said. “Americans decided they didn’t want to live under the rule of King George III. They declared their independence and fought a bloody war for democracy. We’ve had two and a half centuries of democracy since then. Often challenging, sometimes messy, always essential.”

He continued, “Now we have a would-be king who wants to take it away: King Donald the First. Fuck that. We’re rising up again, this time, nonviolently raising our voices to declare: No Kings.”