June 11, 2018

Robert De Niro Says “Fuck Trump” at the Tony Awards

Twice.

Michael Zorn/AP

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Before introducing Bruce Springsteen to the stage at the Tony Awards Sunday evening, legendary actor Robert De Niro took a brief moment to share a simple message about the president of the United States.

“I’m going to say one thing: fuck Trump,” De Niro said, prompting loud applause and a standing ovation. “It’s no longer ‘down with Trump.’ It’s “fuck Trump.”

Thanks to a 10-second delay, CBS bleeped out De Niro’s remarks. But plenty of feeds on social media helped capture the special moment. 

Playwright Tony Kushner, whose landmark work “Angels in America” won the Tony for best play revival, echoed De Niro’s sentiment backstage. “I agree,” Kushner said. He added: “I can’t believe De Niro did that. Good for him.”

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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