Robert De Niro walked onto the stage at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday night, where he received loud applause before he recited excerpts from a Philip Glass symphony about Abraham Lincoln.
“Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence,” the Oscar-winning actor said as he recited a call for civility, as first spoken by Lincoln in 1838. “Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws.”
De Niro was a featured performer at the 39th annual benefit concert for the non-profit cultural and educational organization, Tibet House US, where other artists, including Laurie Anderson, Elvis Costello, Maya Hawke and Allison Russell, also appeared.
The 82-year-old actor read excerpts from Lincoln’s 1838 “Lyceum Address,” a warning against mob violence and the dangers it created for democracy and the rule of law, which he delivered to a young man’s debating society in Springfield, Ill.
Philip Glass, a co-director of Tuesday night’s benefit, used the address as inspiration for his Symphony No. 15, “Lincoln.” Glass was supposed to premiere his symphony at the Kennedy Center in June but announced earlier this year that he was calling off the performance, following the addition of U.S. President Donald Trump’s name to the performing arts institution.
“Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony,” Glass said in a statement at the time. “Therefore, I feel an obligation to withdraw this Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership.”
During his appearance on Tuesday, De Niro did not mention Trump, whom he has denounced often over the past decade.
Last week, De Niro called for peaceful protests after he said the U.S. was “imploding” and the goal was “to get rid of Trump.”
“It’s about our country imploding. It’s not like something outside. It’s something inside. We can’t allow it. If we allow Trump to go any further, he’ll just take more and more and more and more. People have to push back peacefully in the streets all the time, everywhere from now through the midterms,” De Niro told The Guardian.
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“I don’t even use the word ‘hope’ anymore but the midterms are crucial, as everybody knows. The goal is to get rid of Trump because everything goes if he’s not gotten rid of,” he added.
De Niro delivered an emotional plea to Americans at the “State of the Swamp” summit in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 24, which was a state of the union counterprogramming event.
He shared that Trump makes him feel more ashamed than proud to be an American.
“Our country isn’t so lovable right now,” De Niro said. “In the current climate, declaring love for our country is like an abused spouse professing love for their abuser.”
The Goodfellas actor said he was “grateful for the freedoms and opportunities” he and his “immigrant ancestors” had in the U.S., “but my heart is broken as I’m seeing them taken away.”
De Niro went on to ask the crowd: “Love our country? Let me ask you, can you love a country where our neighbours are shot down in the streets by masked government thugs? Can you love a country that denies health care for tens of millions of our fellow citizens?”
He continued: “Can you love a country that ends contributions to sick and starving people around the world, causing hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths, many of them innocent children. Can you love a country that trashes our economy to give tax breaks to its billionaire cronies? Can you love a country that denies science and sacrifices the climate, the very air our children breathe? Can you love a country that pardons violent criminals and protects pedophiles?”
“I feel betrayed by my country,” he added.
He also criticized Trump during an appearance on Nicolle Wallace’s MS Now Podcast, The Best People, one day ahead of the “State of the Swamp” event.
“Trump is the enemy of this country, let’s not kid ourselves,” De Niro said. “It’s that simple. Everybody has to stick together to get them out and get back on track. We can all argue and fight about our little differences and all that. This is the big problem.”
“Everybody has to get out there every way possible. This is our country. You know, I want my country back. I don’t want everybody going around with their MAGA flags and American flags like they’re the only ones (who are patriotic), he continued. “We are Americans, too. And there are more of us because we believe in what’s right and wrong, empathy and kindness.”
Trump responded to De Niro’s comments in a post on Truth Social on Feb. 25, following his state of the union address.
His post began by criticizing Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, saying the two lawmakers “had the bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people, LUNATICS, mentally deranged and sick who, frankly, look like they should be institutionalized.”
“When people can behave like that, and knowing that they are Crooked and Corrupt Politicians, so bad for our Country, we should send them back from where they came — as fast as possible,” he continued. “They can only damage the United States of America, they can do nothing to help it.”
He then turned his attention toward De Niro and said that Omar and Tlaib “should actually get on a boat with Trump Deranged Robert De Niro, another sick and demented person with, I believe, an extremely Low IQ, who has absolutely no idea what he is doing or saying — some of which is seriously CRIMINAL!”
“When I watched him break down in tears last night, much like a child would do, I realized that he may be even sicker than Crazy Rosie O’Donnell, who is right now in Ireland trying to figure out how to come back into our beautiful United States,” Trump continued.
“The only difference between De Niro and Rosie is that she is probably somewhat smarter than him, which isn’t saying much,” Trump wrote. “The good news is that America is now Bigger, Better, Richer, and Stronger than ever before, and it’s driving them absolutely crazy!”
— With files from The Associated Press
