Robert Redford Slams Donald Trump as ‘Dictator-Like’ and ‘Deeply Disturbing’ in Op-Ed

Zack Sharf

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Robert Redford has taken a page out of Robert De Niro’s playbook by publishing an op-ed for NBC News in which he speaks out against Donald Trump and slams his presidency. Redford, who retired from acting following the release of “The Old Man and the Gun” last year (though he also appeared in “Avengers: Endgame”), has expressed issues with Trump in the past (he memorably said in April 2017 that Trump had taken Nixon’s administration to “new and dangerous heights), but never has Redford published an op-ed urging Americans to vote Trump out of office.

“We’re up against a crisis I never thought I’d see in my lifetime: a dictator-like attack by President Donald Trump on everything this country stands for,” Redford writes. “It’s time for Trump to go — along with those in Congress who have chosen party loyalty over their oath to ‘solemnly affirm’ their support for the Constitution of the United States. And it’s up to us to make that happen, through the power of our votes.”

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Redford continues, “What is happening, right now, is so deeply disturbing that instead of the United States of America, we are now defined as the Divided States of America. Leaders on both sides lack the fundamental courage to cross political aisles on behalf of what is good for the American people.”

While Redford has not starred in a film since “The Old Man and the Gun,” he has been back in the media news as of late because HBO’s “Watchmen” features him as the President of the United States. Redford has not appeared on the series but his name is often mentioned. The actor-director stresses in his op-ed what a critical moment the upcoming election is for Americans.

“This is it,” Redford writes. There are only 11 months left before the presidential election; 11 months before we get our one real chance to right this ship and change the course of disaster that lies before us. “Let’s rededicate ourselves to voting for truth, character and integrity in our representatives (no matter which side we’re on). Let’s go back to being the leader the world so desperately needs. Let’s return, quickly, to being simply… Americans.”

Read Redford’s full op-ed on Donald Trump on Deadline’s website.

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