Robert De Niro: ‘Buttigieg Is What We Need Now’

Actor Robert De Niro wants Mayor Pete Buttigieg to be the Democratic Presidential nominee to run against Donald J. Trump in 2020.

In a wide ranging interview with The Daily Beast, ostensibly to promote his new movie The Irishman, he talks his friendship with Martin Scorsese, his role in The Godfather 2, the success of The Joker, and how worried he is that Trump may get re-elected, saying if he does, “if he gets re-elected, it’s gonna be very, very bad. Very bad on a lot of levels. We already have a lot of reparations, if you will—repairs—to do to the damage that he’s already done, and he has to be gotten out.”

According to The Daily Beast, De Niro said “I like Buttigieg. Biden could get us into calmer waters, that would be a good thing. He means well, and to me, he’s a guy who would do the right thing, make the right decision. But Buttigieg I like a lot. He’s got all the credentials—Rhodes Scholar, Afghanistan veteran—even though he’s young, and if he could get a chance it could be something special, I think. As a gay person, he’s someone who comes from a marginalized community, so people from other ethnic groups can identify with him, even if they’re not gay, because they know what it’s like. I think he’s the best for what we need now. I have friends who really like him a lot, as I do. With Obama, he had the middle name “Hussein” and a lot of things that people tried to use against him—including Trump with the whole stupid “birther” thing—and he went right through it. It could happen with Buttigieg.”

Watch the trailer for The Irishman below.