President Donald Trump launched an intense Truth Social rant on Wednesday morning, February 25, 2026, going after actor Robert De Niro and Democratic Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, suggesting that all three should be deported after they delivered counter-speeches Tuesday night, Feb. 24, directly challenging his State of the Union address.
The 82-year-old Oscar-winning actor headlined a response event titled “State of the Swamp” at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 24, speaking just over a mile from the U.S. Capitol while Trump addressed Congress. De Niro gave an emotional plea, urging the public to push back against the administration.
The president quickly retaliated. In his Wednesday morning post, Trump claimed that De Niro and the two lawmakers should “actually get on a boat” together and leave America.
“They should actually get on a boat with Trump Deranged Robert De Niro, another sick and demented person with, I believe, an extremely Low IQ, who has absolutely no idea what he is doing or saying—some of which is seriously CRIMINAL!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The president mocked De Niro’s tearful remarks, saying he was even worse than longtime Trump critic Rosie O’Donnell, who relocated to Ireland in January 2025 to escape the attention surrounding Trump’s second term. O’Donnell recently told SiriusXM’s Chris Cuomo that she secretly returned to the U.S. to visit family but found the environment “scary.”
Trump also lashed out at Omar and Tlaib, who interrupted his State of the Union address Tuesday night by yelling “You have killed Americans” after he referenced Minnesota’s Somali community. Their protest referred to two U.S. citizens shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis in January: Renée Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24.
He described the progressive Congress members as having “the bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people” and suggested they should be “sent back from where they came—as fast as possible.” Omar is a U.S. citizen born in Somalia, and Tlaib was born in Detroit, Michigan, making the president’s deportation claims legally questionable.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung escalated the attacks in a statement to USA TODAY, calling De Niro a “washed-up has-been who hasn’t been relevant in 30 years” and suggesting he seek “immediate treatment for a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
The “State of the Swamp” gathering was hosted by Defiance.org. Additional speakers included “Avengers” star Mark Ruffalo, who appeared via video, and former CNN journalist Jim Acosta. De Niro also appeared on “The Best People with Nicolle Wallace” podcast on Feb. 23, calling Trump “the enemy of this country” and predicting the president would refuse to leave office at the end of his term.
De Niro, who was born in the United States and has been an outspoken critic of Trump for years, told the National Press Club audience that he feels “betrayed by my country” under the current administration. His appeal for Americans to restore democratic values through peaceful activism and voting dominated a 24-hour news cycle that stretched far beyond the State of the Union itself.