Actor Robert De Niro repeated his desire to punch President Donald Trump in the face in an Friday appearance on ABC's "The View."
"He's so blatantly stupid," De Niro said of Trump in a "Get Out the Vote" video before the election. "He's a punk. He's a dog. He's a pig. He's a con, a bullsh — artist. A mutt who doesn't know what he's talking about. ... He's an idiot. Colin Powell said it best: He's a national disaster. He's an embarrassment to this country.
"He talks about he likes to punch people in the face. We'll I'd like to punch him in the face."
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De Niro, hyping his new movie "The Comedian" on "The View," did not back down from the hateful rhetoric now Trump is in office.
"I said that because he said that about somebody, that he would like to punch them in the face," De Niro said. "How dare he say that to the crowd? How dare he say the things he does? Of course I want to punch him in the face."
De Niro admitted, he too, was not serious about the threat of violence, like the president.
"It was only a symbolic thing, anyway," De Niro continued. "It wasn't like I was going to go find him and punch him in the face. But he's got to hear it. He's got to hear it, you know, that's how he makes people feel.
"It's not good to feel that way. It's not good to start that stuff up, but at the same time sometimes when people are bullies like that, that's what you have to do to shut them up. Bully them back."
Politically charged violence is a thing these days, especially by comics, apparently. Conservative author and comic Gavin McInnes told Newsmax TV's "The Steve Malzberg Show," jokingly: "Fighting is fun — fighting solves everything."