Robert De Niro, media pundits lose their minds over Trump
2024 presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump are set to face off on the debate stage in June and September ahead of early voting.
Anti-Trump actor Robert De Niro lent his staunch support to the Biden-Harris campaign this week, narrating a new ad that painted Trump as an unstable "dictator" who will do anything to grab power.
De Niro, who has gained notoriety throughout the Trump years by trashing the former president on many occasions, provided a voice-over for the new ad which trotted out some questionable or debunked narratives about Trump that the Democratic Party and media outlets have pushed.
"Trump wants revenge, and he’ll stop at nothing to get it," De Niro began in the quick 30-second spot, which also included quotes from Trump that prominent conservatives say have been taken out of context.
Robert De Niro did a voiceover for an anti-Trump Biden campaign ad that peddled several anti-Trump narratives that conservatives have called "hoaxes." (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
The campaign ad begins with De Niro saying, "From midnight tweets to drinking bleach, to tear-gassing citizens and staging a photo op, we knew Trump was out of control when he was president."
As the actor spoke the line, images of the former president in office flashed across the screen accompanied by tense background music.
The line about "bleach" is a narrative that Democratic Party figures and media people have floated involving the former president encouraging Americans to "inject bleach" during a White House briefing at the height of the pandemic.
During a recent speech, Biden attacked Trump, saying, "Look, I’ll never forget him lying about the pandemic, telling Americans to inject bleach into their skin."
However, at the time, Trump referenced an unspecified "disinfectant" that he was learning about which could be injected to combat coronavirus, and never mentioned bleach.
"I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?" the then-president said. "As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that."
The "photo op" narrative was debunked a year after Trump’s infamous walk over to the vandalized St. John’s church, with an Interior Department Inspector General investigation finding that it was necessary to remove Black Lives Matter protesters from Lafayette park on June 1, 2020, in order to install anti-scale fencing to prevent White House grounds from being overrun.
The report found that Trump had coincidentally walked out into the cleared space hours after the plan to clear it had been decided on.
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Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event on April 2, in Grand Rapids, Mich. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
De Niro continued narrating the ad, stating, "Now he’s running again, this time threatening to be a dictator, to terminate the Constitution." The voiceover then paused, allowing a clip of Trump to play in which the 2024 presidential candidate told rallygoers, "If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath."
Several conservatives previously called out complaints about the "bloodbath" line, deriding it as taken out of context.
After Trump made the claims in March, outlets like Rolling Stone, NBC News, and CBS News shared headlines about Trump claiming there would be a "bloodbath" if he didn’t win re-election that didn’t mention he was referring to the automotive industry.
Trump campaign spokesperson contradicted this framing, telling NBC News, "Biden’s policies will create an economic bloodbath for the auto industry and autoworkers."
At the time, X owner Elon Musk blasted NBC News for not providing context, stating, "This headline is deceptive, as he was referring to the auto industry. Shame on NBC."
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Conservative commentator, U.S. military veteran, and author Sean Parnell hammered NBC as well, posting, "NBC pushing the bloodbath hoax now. Unreal. These ‘news’ agencies need a complete overhaul. They are no different than state-run media propaganda."
The Biden-Harris campaign did not immediately reply to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Timothy Nerozzi and Caitlin McFall contributed to this report.
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