Robert De Niro criticizes the policy pursued by the Trump administration

Robert De Niro took dead aim at President Donald Trump during an acceptance speech for the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Chaplin Award in New York on Monday. After several of De Niro’s closest friends and colleagues honored him at the 44th annual Chaplin Award Gala, the iconic actor and filmmaker delivered a heartfelt speech that both paid tribute to the award’s namesake, Charlie Chaplin, while also criticizing the Trump administration for its position on issues ranging from healthcare to education to the environment.

“Everyone knows Chaplin was a great artist, but he made his movies to entertain. It was only later that they became art,” De Niro said in his speech.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because of our government’s hostility towards art. The budget proposal, among its other draconian cuts to life-saving and life enhancing programs, eliminates the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. For their own devices and political purposes, the administration suggests that the money for these all inclusive program goes to the rich, liberal elite. This is what they now call an alternative fact. I call it what it is — bullshit.”