De Niro calls Trump supporters 'gangsters' in heated exchange outside court

DE NIRO: “Thank you. I mean, this is really — even these people over here are kind of — it’s kind of crazy. It’s really crazy. This thing, Donald Trump has created this. He should be telling them not to do this, but he is just — he wants to — he wants to sow total chaos, which he is succeeding in some areas and places to do. Anyway, beside all that, this is my neighborhood, Downtown New York City. I grew up here and feel at home in these streets. I feel comfortable. The Twin Towers fell just over here, just over there. This part of the city was like a ghost town, but we vowed we would not allow terrorists to change our way of life. And we started the Tribeca Festival to bring people back. I love this 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. But we vowed we would not allow terrorists — I owe this city a lot. That’s why it is so weird that Donald Trump is just across the street, because he doesn’t belong in my city. I don’t know where he belongs, but he certainly doesn’t belong here. We New Yorkers used to tolerate him when he was just another grubby real estate hustler masquerading as a big shot, a two-bit player lying his way into the tabloids, pretending to be a spokesman, a spokesperson for himself. He was calling it as himself for himself to fool the press and to inflate his net worth. A clown. But this city is pretty accommodating. We make room for clowns. We have them all over the city, people who do crazy things in the street. We tolerate it and it’s part of the culture. But not a person like Trump who will eventually run the country. That does not work and we all know that. Anyway, we make room for clowns. To each his own. But no one takes him or took him seriously. They take him seriously now, of course.”