Actor Robert De Niro is accusing President Trump Donald John TrumpBarr criticizes DOJ in speech declaring all agency power 'is invested in the attorney general' Military leaders asked about using heat ray on protesters outside White House: report Powell warns failure to reach COVID-19 deal could 'scar and damage' economy MORE of being a "real racist" and a white supremacist.

The actor, who has become a vocal critic of the president, made the comments in a new interview with The Guardian, telling the newspaper that his outspoken opposition to Trump comes from being "upset about what’s going on."

“When you see someone like [Trump] becoming president, I thought, well, OK, let’s see what he does – maybe he’ll change," De Niro said in the interview, which was published on Sunday. "But he just got worse. It showed me that he is a real racist. I thought maybe as a New Yorker he understands the diversity in the city but he’s as bad as I thought he was before – and much worse. It’s a shame. It’s a bad thing in this country.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Asked if he considered Trump to be a white supremacist, De Niro responded, "yes." He added that he was "naive" about former President Obama's multiple election wins and what it reflected about American society.

“I felt we were on a new thing. I didn’t realize how against him certain people were – racially against him, offended that he was there," De Niro said.

De Niro also voiced concern about Trump's brand of politics and how that may be exploited in the future.

“What bothers me is that there will be people in the future who see him as an example and they’ll be affected in some way, but they’ll be a lot smarter and have many more colors to their personality and be more mercurial and become someone with the same values as he has but able to get much further and do more damage as a despot," he said.

De Niro has repeatedly criticized Trump throughout his presidency. He said “f--- Trump” while speaking onstage at the Tony Awards last June and has called the president “baby in chief” and “jerkoff in chief," among other things.

The Academy Award-winning actor was one of many high-profile Democrats and Trump critics to be targeted with mailed pipe bombs in October. Cesar Sayoc Jr., the man charged with mailing the homemade explosives, pleaded not guilty to all 30 charges against him in New York in November.