Robert De Niro has compared Donald Trump to a “gangster” and said he is unfit to be president, just days after Democrats in Washington announced they would begin official impeachment efforts against the president.

De Niro, a vocal critic of the president, said during an interview with CNN’s Brian Stelter that Mr Trump is “crazy”, before responding bluntly when asked how he deals with criticism from the president’s backers at Fox News.

“F*** ‘em,” the actor said. The profanity caused Mr Stelter to gently remind him that the interview was live on a Sunday morning, before then asking why he chose to use such strong language.

De Niro responded: “We are in a moment in our lives in this country where this guy is like a gangster. He’s come along, he’s said things, done things.

"We say over and over again, ‘This is terrible, we’re in a terrible situation, we’re in a terrible situation.’ And this guy keeps going on and on without being stopped.”

It’s not the first time that the actor has criticised the president in that way, and comes after he gained a lot of attention — and a standing ovation — for using a similar vocabulary during the Tony Awards.

“I’m going to say one thing: ‘f**k Trump,’” he said then. “It’s no longer ‘down with Trump,' it’s ‘f**k Trump.’”

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