Last night, Martin Scorsese's latest film, killers of the Flower Moon, won the. Gotham Historical Icon and Creator tribute at the Gotham Awards. Now, when Robert De Niro took the stage to basically present the award, [00:00:15] he realized that the diatribe that he had scripted and was prepared to give. Well, it had been censored. Certain elements of that speech had been cut out. He had written some in the moment. In some moments of the speech, he went after Trump, for instance, [00:00:34] and right wing culture wars. It was all removed from the teleprompter. So. De Niro, who actually stars in the film, accused the Gotham Awards and Apple, which financed killers of the Flower Moon, of editing his speech. But as of now, we can't even confirm who specifically was responsible [00:00:52] for doing this right now. De Niro had a copy of his unedited speech on his phone, so he got to speak his mind anyway, and we get to hear his original speech. So let's start with De Niro's comments on the nonstop culture wars that have [00:01:08] basically consumed politics in America. History isn't history anymore. Truth is not truth. Even facts are being replaced by alternative facts and driven by conspiracy theories and ugliest ugliness. [00:01:25] In Florida, young students are taught that slaves develop skills which could be applied for their personal benefit. Okay, I got to say, I love, like, the one person in the audience who's like. Okay, we. [00:01:41] Have more from his speech, but initial thoughts was. Boomer beef. You know, Robert De Niro obviously just has a personal distaste for Donald Trump and his cavalier nature towards politics [00:01:58] and, you know, wielding his bully pulpit the way that he does. De Niro is obviously just a mega boomer lib, and so his sensibilities are all rankled by the existence of Donald Trump. And, you know, obviously, Robert De Niro has been a guy in New York since the 70s. [00:02:18] And Donald Trump obviously started his prominence in the 80s. I'd be shocked if they passed having crossed, and I would be shocked if this wasn't like literally a personal situation between those two, right? But I have to say, a lot of the points that he makes in his his speech [00:02:35] is indicative of what you're likely to hear on MSNBC. Right. So you're right to point out this flavor of liberalism that we have here in the United States, which, look, the issue that I have is the one sidedness of it. All right. [00:02:50] The attempt I don't even think he's doing this intentionally, but. Turning a blind eye to the Democratic Party, engaging in similar behavior. So I'll give you a specific example. He talks about Florida banning books, which, look, we've covered those stories. [00:03:07] I have a problem with censorship. Yes. There are some books that are inappropriate for school libraries for elementary school students, but there were a lot of books that were mentioned for review in Florida that were perfectly fine and had no inappropriate issues. [00:03:22] When you look at the left, though, are we really going to pretend like they haven't tried to ban books? Because they certainly have. They've tried to censor or ban literature that, you know, was written at a time when the n word was used pretty liberally. [00:03:39] Okay. And so there's classic works that have been banned in school districts, because somewhere in the book the n word exists. I don't think that's okay. I think that's wrong. But you'll never see headlines about that. Which drives me crazy. [00:03:54] Yeah, you could tell that that Bobby D is a dedicated Rachel Maddow viewer. - He's got her on speed dial. - Never missed an episode. If he missed, if he wasn't home, he dvred it, I promise you. So let's get to the the filet mignon of his speech. [00:04:14] Okay. The moment that I think he really wanted to express as he was presenting this award and it has to do with Trump. Let's watch. The former president lied to us more than 30,000 times during his four. [00:04:30] Thank you. Years in office. And he's keeping up the pace in his current campaign of retribution. But with all his lies, he can't hide his soul. He attacks the weak, destroys the gifts of nature, and shows disrespect, for example, [00:04:48] by using Pocahontas as a slur. So that was a reference to Trump going after Elizabeth Warren by calling her Pocahontas. Honestly, after she embarrassed herself by claiming that she's part Native American. Like she shouldn't have done that. [00:05:03] But he also shouldn't be using Pocahontas as a nickname for her. It's disgusting and gross. But what do you think about what he had to say? - There was it's. - Just it's just so live the lie tracker, the you know, the word, the bad words. [00:05:22] It's like, man, if he got up there and was just like, look, man, like this, people that need X, Y and Z, the rents are crazy, blah blah blah. He should be spending his time working on those things for the people of our great country. Then cool. It's just he's just offended by the type of public person Donald Trump is. [00:05:40] That's basically what it is. It sounds like he just feels like he's bad at being a celebrity. And that's what Robert De Niro doesn't like about him. Yeah, you know. I'm not as critical of De Niro as you are, right? Like he's expressing himself. He has issues. [00:05:55] And look, I think he makes some decent points. However, I think you're hitting on something was that's important, right. Because when it comes in this culture of the haves versus have nots, right. And obviously Robert De Niro, a tremendously successful actor, [00:06:12] a man of means, he's he's doing he's rich, he's doing well. It's really easy. And I don't think he's doing it intentionally. I don't think this is like something he sat and thought about. But what ends up happening is the privileged element of the Democratic [00:06:27] Party, which he is a representative of here, kind of turn a blind eye to the reality that American voters are facing. American workers are facing. So his speech hyper focuses on the cultural stuff, right? [00:06:43] Trump lies. It's true. Trump did lie. He lied a lot, and he continues to be a liar. But are we going to pretend like he's like. Like this is novel. Like this is oh my God, what an anomaly in our American political system. [00:06:58] A politician is a liar. I mean, come on. This is so here's. Here's here's what I'll say for for viewers. If you guys get a chance, I want the viewers to go look up this football player, Joe Burrow. He's a very prominent player now. [00:07:14] He won the most prestigious college football award there is called the Heisman. He got up there on his during his speech, and he talked about food insecurity of the kids in the neighborhoods in Ohio where he's from. That man talked about child hunger with his speech. [00:07:31] Okay. He didn't talk about, oh, the president is this and that and which people would say better words. He's like, yo, there are people where I'm from who don't have anything to eat right now. And I'm up here giving this fancy ass speech, and that's what I'm thinking about those people. [00:07:48] I want them to know that it's possible to do things like what I'm doing today. You know, like that's just a completely different proposition than Donald Trump. You know, he called Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas, which, if I'm being real, Anna, the fact that she lied about being indigenous is worse [00:08:07] than Trump calling her Pocahontas. - That's just me. - No, look, I agree with you. She should not have done that. It's very bad. Okay? Very bad. So I agree with you on that. And look at that Joe Burrow. What a stud. I'm definitely going to look up that speech. And you make a really good point because clearly I mean you're talking [00:08:23] about a professional athlete who's doing well for himself as well, but still has the ability to acknowledge the reality that disadvantaged Americans are facing. Now, you made a point about how it seems like there's something personal between De Niro and Donald Trump. [00:08:40] Apparently, his hatred of Trump does go back a little bit. He has called Trump an idiot, a lunatic, the baby in chief, and even shouted F Trump! But he eventually said the word when he took the stage at the 2018 Tony Awards. [00:08:56] And Trump has referenced De Niro as a very low IQ individual. And. What are we going to do? What are we going to do? - Yeah. - Somewhere in the 80s they might have. They might have, you know, dated the same woman or something. [00:09:15] Like this is this is so deeply personal between these two, like, nothing else makes any type of sense. And by the way, I encourage people to go watch killers of the Flower Moon if it's even still in theaters, I did. I happen to really enjoy that movie. Robert De Niro is fantastic in the movie. [00:09:34] I've never actually seen a Hollywood movie tell a story, a particular story about indigenous people of North America. This way. I found it to be stirring, deeply upsetting. Go watch that movie, by the way. [00:09:49] But yeah, this this Trump and Robert De Niro thing. I can't I can't get excited about this type of thing. It's not 2016, y'all. Yeah, no, I totally Trump's an issue, but I think that what ends up [00:10:05] empowering him is actually the is this. Yeah, it's the hysterical stuff that we see from some liberals. I don't think that it's ever worked. It's only made Trump more powerful in the eyes of his voters, of course. And so maybe we we take a different tactic, you know, maybe we consider [00:10:25] rather than like hyper focusing on how Trump is a liar, as if other politicians aren't liars. You actually, like, do a little bit of a dissection in regard to what Trump. - And. - This is this is the thing. Sorry to interrupt, but this is the thing that pisses me off the most about liberalism today is the grandstanding nature of it all. [00:10:44] Yeah, it used to be the opposite. It used to be these churchgoing ass conservatives lecturing us about what we wear, music we listen to, blah, blah, blah. We're so morally inept and now it's liberals doing this nasty grandstanding. Thanks for watching. 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