The actor who won an Oscar playing a young Vito Corleone has aimed three words at the president, and one of them is not printable.
Robert De Niro, 83, a two-time Oscar winner, delivered that line in a video for Hands Off Our Vote, a group campaigning to protect voting rights, which was circulating online by Oct. 22, 2026. He addressed the message to President Donald Trump and the people he calls thugs.
“This is Robert De Niro, and I’ve got a message for them,” the actor said in the video, before boiling it down to three blunt words: “No **** way!”
Ballots Banked Before Election Day
De Niro’s instruction to Americans was simple: get the ballot in before Election Day, which falls on Nov. 3 for the midterms. Voters can do it by mail or in person, and the timing is theirs to pick.
“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. “Vote early,” he added. “And then, no matter what they pull on Election Day, your vote will already be banked.”
The actor laid out the choice he sees on the November ballot. Voters can pick politicians who support a power-hungry leader, get us into a disastrous war and corruptly benefit from it, he said, or candidates who will preserve their healthcare and condemn pedophiles. He urged anyone “as furious as I am at all these thugs who are messing with our votes” to find out how to help through Hands Off Our Vote, and pointed to supporters fighting in the courts and demonstrating in the streets.
Washington Hands California a Purge List
De Niro’s warning lands while the Trump administration presses states to strike people it says are noncitizens from voter rolls. 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 is determined. On Monday, Oct. 26, a divided panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the department’s emergency appeal, saying it had moved before U.S. District Judge David O. Carter could rule. Carter scheduled a hearing on the request for Tuesday, Oct. 27.
Federal officials had delivered California a list of more than 20,000 people they considered likely noncitizens on Oct. 13, giving the state a 48-hour window to review a password-protected thumb drive containing the names. The state did not meet that deadline, and the secretary of state said the administration has provided no evidence to support the claim that the people on the list are likely noncitizens. California mails ballots to all registered voters, and more than 23 million people are registered statewide. A department letter told officials that those who knowingly count those ballots “risk becoming aiders and abettors to a federal crime.”
Trent McCotter, the acting deputy attorney general, wrote that letter and sent it the day after the administration sued California. 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. Federal prosecutors followed on Oct. 23 with letters to at least 18 California counties, ordering ballots from voters on the list set aside.
Nevada’s Count Shrank to 185
The Justice Department has charged about 90 people this year with various types of election misconduct, and prosecutors allege 50 of them voted as noncitizens. There were more than 227 million registered voters nationally in the 2024 presidential election.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin sent letters in July to California, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania alleging that as many as 250,000 noncitizens were registered in those states. For Nevada, Mullin put the figure at as many as 15,903. DHS later said a manual review had confirmed 185 people were not citizens, and Nevada officials replied in September that all 185 were in fact citizens.
Rick Hasen, an election law expert and UCLA law professor, said in an interview published Oct. 21 that the federal pressure is pushing states and localities toward seeing Washington as an adversary. “It’s not the kind of thing that ever has happened, that I’m aware of,” he said. Hasen pointed to the National Voter Registration Act, which generally requires systematic removals of ineligible voters to be completed at least 90 days before a federal primary or general election.
Hasen said the letter “ups the ante by threatening election officials with potential criminal prosecution.” He 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.”
The Chant He Led in New York
De Niro appeared with actor Mark Ruffalo at a Hands Off Our Vote event in New York on Oct. 4, where he led the audience in a profane chant built on the group’s name. Ruffalo shared the new video on social media with the hashtags #no****ingway and #handsoffour****ingvote.
The organization’s website accuses the administration of trying to keep people from voting, control elections and seize more authoritarian power. The group refuses to accept that, the website says, and states that the will of the people will prevail.
De Niro, who played Vito Corleone in “The Godfather Part II,” has criticized Trump for years, and the president hits back. Trump has repeatedly called the actor “a sick and demented person” and “pathetic and sad.” Earlier in 2026, De Niro described Trump as a danger to the nation’s liberty and safety.