The actor who made Vito Corleone a household name has recorded three blunt words for President Donald Trump and the people he calls thugs.
Robert De Niro, 83, the two-time Oscar winner who played Corleone in “The Godfather Part II,” appears in a video for the voting-rights group Hands Off Our Vote that was circulating online by Oct. 22, 2026, urging Americans to cast their ballots before Election Day in the midterms on Nov. 3.
“Voting should be easy. You get to decide. That’s your right, that’s your superpower, but there’s a catch. There are some powerful people who want to take away that power,” De Niro said in the video.
Then comes the line aimed at those people. “This is Robert De Niro, and I’ve got a message for them,” he said, before delivering it: “No **** way!”
Your Vote Will Already Be Banked
De Niro then spells out the choice on the ballot. “If you want to elect politicians to prop up a would-be king who gets us into a disastrous war and corruptly profits from it, you can find them,” he said. “Or, if you prefer candidates who won’t cut your healthcare and won’t protect pedophiles, there are great choices there, too.”
He tells anyone “as furious as I am at all these thugs who are messing with our votes” to go to Hands Off Our Vote to learn how to help, and he said supporters are fighting in the courts and demonstrating in the streets. His practical advice is early voting, by mail or in person, with the timing left to each voter.
“Vote early,” he said. “And then, no matter what they pull on Election Day, your vote will already be banked.”
Actor Mark Ruffalo, who joined De Niro at a Hands Off Our Vote event in New York on Oct. 4, shared the new video on social media with the hashtags #no****ingway and #handsoffour****ingvote. At that event, De Niro led the audience in a profane chant built on the group’s name.
The administration, according to the group’s website, is working to block people from the ballot box in order to control elections and grab still more authoritarian power. The site says it refuses to accept that, and that the will of the people will prevail.
Officials Warned of Aiding a Federal Crime
The Trump administration is pushing states to purge their voter rolls of people it says are noncitizens, and De Niro’s warning lands in the middle of that campaign. The Justice Department sued California on Oct. 15, asking a federal court to bar state officials from counting mail ballots cast by likely noncitizens until each voter’s citizenship can be determined.
Federal officials had delivered California a list of more than 20,000 people they considered likely noncitizens on Oct. 13, giving the state 48 hours to review it before filing suit. A court hearing on the lawsuit is set for Tuesday, Oct. 27.
Trent McCotter, the acting deputy attorney general, sent a letter the day after the lawsuit warning that officials who knowingly count those ballots “risk becoming aiders and abettors to a federal crime.” He addressed it to the Los Angeles County Counsel’s office and copied California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan.
“The legal consequences for either facilitating or ignoring a federal crime are significant. Noncitizen voting in a federal election is a federal crime — and knowingly facilitating such conduct is equally unlawful,” McCotter wrote.
Federal prosecutors followed on Oct. 23 with letters to at least 18 California counties, ordering ballots from voters on the list set aside. More than 23 million people are registered to vote statewide, and a handful of competitive congressional races there could determine which party controls the U.S. House for the final two years of Trump’s term.
Nevada Counted 1,500, Then Zero
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin sent letters in July to California, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania alleging that as many as 250,000 noncitizens had registered in those states. That same month, the administration claimed 1,500 noncitizen voters sat on Nevada’s rolls; after the federal government identified them to the state, the number of actual registered noncitizens came to zero.
The Justice Department has charged about 90 people in 2026 so far with various types of election misconduct, 50 of them alleged to have voted as noncitizens. More than 227 million voters were registered nationally during the 2024 presidential election.
States and localities are coming to view Washington as an adversary because of the federal pressure, Rick Hasen, an election law expert and UCLA law professor, told an interviewer in remarks published Oct. 21. “It’s not the kind of thing that ever has happened, that I’m aware of,” Hasen said.
Hasen said McCotter’s letter “ups the ante by threatening election officials with potential criminal prosecution,” and added: “It is deplorable that rather than work cooperatively and assist states in their election administration responsibilities, the federal government is making escalating threats and unreasonable demands beyond its power in the middle of an ongoing election.” He pointed to the National Voter Registration Act as well. That law generally requires systematic removals of ineligible voters to be completed at least 90 days before a federal primary or general election.
De Niro has criticized Trump for years, and earlier in 2026 he described the president as a danger to the nation’s liberty and safety. Trump has hit back repeatedly, calling the actor “a sick and demented person” and “pathetic and sad.”
