Robert De Niro’s latest Trump speech didn’t just go viral because he was angry. It was because he questioned what patriotism means when you believe the country is going wrong.
At Rise Up, Sing Out: A Concert for the First Amendment, held June 14 at New York’s Town Hall, De Niro told the crowd that he could not say he loved America “right now” under Donald Trump’s second term.
The event was organized by the Committee for the First Amendment, a group originally founded in 1947 during the House Un-American Activities Committee era and revived by Jane Fonda in 2025. Fonda, Bette Midler, Patti Smith, Julia Roberts, Lily Gladstone and others also appeared.
De Niro said a line from an ACLU protest letter, “regardless of political affiliation, we all love our country,” had stuck with him. Onstage, he argued that loving the country now sounded to him like an abused spouse saying they love their abuser.
He criticized wars, healthcare cuts, masked enforcement actions and Trump directly, calling him a racist, misogynist and xenophobic tyrant. But he also spoke about the America that welcomed his immigrant ancestors and gave his family opportunities.
“I want to love my country again,” he said, closing with a call for people to organize, speak out and “fall in love again.”
The White House pushed back hard. Spokesman Davis Ingle dismissed the celebrity criticism, saying “nobody in their right mind cares what out-of-touch woke celebrities in Hollywood say or think.”
The speech landed in a familiar American debate: whether criticizing the government is an act against the country, or one of the freedoms the country is supposed to protect.
Do you think public figures like De Niro help or hurt political conversations when they speak this bluntly?
Sources: WZTV, The Guardian, Fox News, Yahoo News, Culturacolectiva
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