Well, it looks like somebody just talked his way out of an invite to President Trump's inauguration gala! During a chat with NBC's Brian Williams at the Tribeca Film Festival, actor Robert De Niro trashed Trump for continuing to insist that Obama wasn't born in the U.S. "I won't mention names, but certain people in the news the last couple weeks, just, what are they doing?" De Niro told Williams, according to Movieline. "It’s crazy. They’re making statements about people that they don’t even back up. Go get the facts before you start saying things about people. It’s like a big hustle. It’s like being a car salesman. Don’t go out there and say things unless you can back them up. How dare you? That’s awful to do. To just go out and speak and say these terrible things? Unless you just wanna get over and get the job. It’s crazy."
De Niro reportedly confirmed that he was talking about Donald Trump, who fired back at the actor this morning. "Well, he’s not the brightest bulb in the planet," Trump told Fox and Friends. "I have been watching him over the years and I like his acting but in terms of when I watch him doing interviews and various other things, we are not dealing with Albert Einstein. He can say what he wants but the fact is this guy has not revealed his birth certificate. A lot of people agree with me. With all that I do, what I do best is China, jobs, OPEC. That’s what I do best, that is going to be my strength."
In this week's New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg looks at America's history of "joke" presidential candidates, and finds some similarities to Trump in Bishop Homer A. Tomlinson, who ran for president in the '50s and '60s as the nominee of the Theocratic Party. Between campaigns Tomlinson, Hertzberg writes, "travelled the world with a portable throne, crowning himself, among other things, King of Belgium, King of Ethiopia, Tsar of Russia, and, finally, King of the World. Trump thinks no less highly of himself.
"Tomlinson’s delusions were harmless, and not widely shared. Not so Trump’s. In the weeks since his proto-campaign began, Trump has talked of many things. Of energy policy, for example: 'We need to seize Iraq’s oil fields.' Of China: 'Our enemies.' Of abortion rights: 'I’m pro-life.' (He used to be pro-choice, but, as one of his top aides noted the other day, 'people change their positions all the time, the way they change their wives.')"
Republicans, however, seem to be seriously entertaining the idea of a Trump run, at least here in New York. Trump will headline the annual Manhattan Republican Party's Lincoln Dinner in June at the Grand Hyatt, and Queens Republican County Chairman Phil Ragusa wants the billionaire to speak at his next fundraiser. "If you look at upstate New York, all the manufacturing jobs in upstate New York are gone and I think someone like Trump would want to get those jobs back here in the United States," Ragusa told WNYC, noting that Trump was born in Queens. "So we know him and to me he is a type of guy who gets things done and that's what we need." Trump has not yet formally declared his candidacy, but he says he'll make his decision known before a GOP banquet in Des Moines in June.
