Hollywood, May 14 (RHC)-- U.S. actor and Oscar winner Robert De Niro says he believes that U.S. President Donald Trump does not care how many people die from the coronavirus.  “It’s like Shakespearean, the whole thing.  You’ve got a lunatic saying things that people are trying to dance around,” De Niro said during a video interview with the British broadcaster BBC.

“It’s appalling.  He wants to be reelected, he doesn’t even care how many people die,” he noted.  The Hollywood star further reiterated that the coronavirus pandemic would not have been as bad as it is, if Trump had implemented measures such as the Defense Production Act.

“I just never thought I would see anything like this in my lifetime,” De Niro said.  “I’ve taken many things for granted and I see when something like this happens that we all have to take it very seriously — to say the least — and we have to stop it.  And that’s what I’m hoping in November, the election, we can come back to some sanity here.”

De Niro has a long history of anti-Trump outbursts and expletives.  A few months before the presidential election in 2016, he famously described the then presidential candidate and his campaign as “really totally crazy, ridiculous."