There was a time when Robert De Niro was the most intimidating man in American cinema. Travis Bickle. Vito Corleone. Jimmy Conway. The guy could make you feel unsafe just by tilting his head.

Now he’s weeping on Nicolle Wallace’s podcast about “lifting people up.”

How the mighty have fallen. And they didn’t even trip — they jumped.

The Podcast Performance

De Niro popped up on an MS NOW podcast — because apparently that’s where Hollywood legends go to die — and delivered what can only be described as a therapy session that accidentally went live.

Trump is “sadistic.” Trump is “cruel.” Trump is “destroying” America. The country is “sick” and “f**ked up.” Standard stuff from a man who’s been screaming the same lines since 2016 with all the range of an actor doing one character for nine straight years.

But then came the waterworks. De Niro actually choked up on air talking about “lifting people up.” The man who’s spent the last decade calling half the country Nazis got emotional about unity. Nicolle Wallace, never one to miss a performative moment, claimed he was making her cry — though the broadcast showed approximately zero tears on her end.

And then De Niro dropped his big closer: “All I know is people have to resist, resist, resist.”

Resist what, exactly? A booming economy? Dropping drug overdose deaths? A president who just gave a two-hour State of the Union while De Niro gave a six-minute cry on a podcast nobody watches?

The Truth Social Knockout

Trump, as usual, didn’t let it slide. He hopped on Truth Social and did what Trump does — threw a haymaker wrapped in a punchline.

He called De Niro “low IQ,” “sick and demented,” and suggested some of his statements are “seriously CRIMINAL.” He noted that watching De Niro “break down in tears last night, much like a child would do” made him realize the actor “may be even sicker than Crazy Rosie O’Donnell.”

Then the kicker — the “only difference between De Niro” and O’Donnell is that “she is probably somewhat smarter than him.”

That’s a two-for-one insult delivered with the casual efficiency of a man who’s been doing this longer than De Niro has been doing press tours for movies nobody sees.

The Irony Is Blinding

Let’s pause on something De Niro said: “You have to bring them together. You can’t divide people. You can’t win that way.”

This is the same Robert De Niro who stood on a stage at the Tony Awards and screamed a profanity about the sitting President to a standing ovation. The same man who’s called Republican voters Nazis — not metaphorically, not with a wink, but flatly and repeatedly. The same actor who has spent nearly a decade doing nothing publicly except expressing raw, unfiltered contempt for roughly half the country.

And now he’s crying about unity. On a liberal podcast. To an audience that already agrees with him.

That’s not a call for togetherness. That’s a man performing compassion for people who already bought a ticket.

The Bigger Picture

De Niro is 82 years old. His last culturally relevant movie is a matter of genuine debate. His political commentary has devolved from provocative to predictable to just plain sad. And yet the media keeps booking him, keeps nodding along, keeps pretending that a wealthy actor who hasn’t lived a normal life since the Nixon administration has something urgent to tell working Americans about their struggles.

He doesn’t. He lives in a world of private cars, Manhattan penthouses, and podcast green rooms where Nicolle Wallace pretends to cry. His “resistance” costs him nothing. His tears risk nothing. His words change nothing.

Meanwhile, Trump is running the country, engaging with world leaders, dismantling cartels, and finding time to roast De Niro on social media before breakfast.

One of these men is governing. The other is auditioning for sympathy on a show most Americans will never hear.

The Closing Credits

Trump also folded in a shot at Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who apparently “screamed uncontrollably” during the State of the Union with “the bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people.” Subtle it was not. Accurate? Watch the footage and decide for yourself.

But the De Niro bit is the headline, because it captures something larger — the complete exhaustion of Hollywood’s political relevance. These people have been saying the same thing since 2016. “Resist.” “He’s destroying everything.” “This is not normal.” Nine years of the same script, and the only thing that’s changed is that now they cry while delivering it.

De Niro once played men who commanded rooms without saying a word. Now he can’t stop talking, and nobody’s listening.

Somewhere, Travis Bickle is looking in the mirror and asking, “You talking to me?”

Nobody is, Bob. Not anymore.