Actor Robert De Niro on Sunday told graduates at Brown University that they are graduating into a “tragic, dumbass comedy” in an apparent slam on President Trump.
During a university ceremony, De Niro drew a distinction between the state of the U.S. when the graduates started their studies and now.
“When you started school, the country was an inspiring, uplifting drama,” De Niro, who received an honorary degree from the university, said during his remarks.
{mosads}“You are graduating into a tragic, dumbass comedy. My advice is to lock the Van Wickle Gates and stay here. But if you do leave, work for the change. Work to stop the insanity. Start now so the Class of 2018 will graduate into a better world.”
Many speakers this year have used their platforms at commencement ceremonies across the country to decry actions of the Trump administration and to urge graduates to fight for change.
De Niro has also criticized Trump in the past.
Earlier this year, he ripped the president’s budget outline, which proposed cuts to arts funding.
“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,” he said earlier this year.
“For their own divisive political purposes, the administration suggests that the money for these all-inclusive programs goes to rich liberal elites. This is what they now call an ‘alternative fact,’ but I call it bullshit.”