Rob Schneider walked into the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary celebration knowing exactly what kind of room he was entering. Last year, he endorsed Donald Trump for president, and that doesn’t exactly make you a lot of friends in Hollywood. What he didn't expect was to find himself inches away from one of the loudest, angriest anti-Trump voices in entertainment: Robert De Niro.
In an interview with Jan Jekielek of the Epoch Times, Schneider recounted an incident involving De Niro at the event, which says a lot about both men. Before telling the story, Schneider began by giving De Niro his due as an actor. "He's obviously like the heir apparent to Marlon Brando," Schneider said. "He's an incredible — an actor of great power and esteem, and all this."
That respect, however, sits alongside an observation many Americans have made watching De Niro melt down on cable news and awards stages.
"I think there's, whatever's going on in their life, you could decide to focus all of that, well, if you wanna use the term negativity, anger, or what have you, in a particular avenue," Schneider explained. "And I think, um, for some people, I think it's, um, it has a name, and that's, uh, President Donald J. Trump."
Schneider pointed out that he actually knows De Niro outside of politics and even credited him with helping the controversial documentary Vaxxed get into the Tribeca Film Festival. "He was very helpful with the movie called Vaxxed to put it in the Tribeca Film Festival, and that wasn't an easy thing to do," Schneider said, noting the immense pressure De Niro faced for that decision. The backlash was so intense that De Niro ultimately pulled the film, something Schneider said everyone involved understood.
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That background mattered when Schneider spotted De Niro sitting just two rows ahead of him at the SNL reunion. His instinct was simple: Avoid the drama.
"When I saw him there, I instantly want to not have conflict," Schneider said. “’Cause he, I'm sure he knows I'm a Trump supporter and I don't wanna, I don't want him to ruin mine. And so, we'll just — we'll just avoid it. I'm there to celebrate the 50 years of Saturday Night Live. I'm part of their history, they're part of mine, and so they were kind enough to include me into these festivities, and we're all there in our tuxedos.”
That plan fell apart during the final bow, when decades' worth of cast members and hosts were funneled onto a cramped stage. "I find myself being jostled and I'm right behind De Niro," Schneider recalled. Eventually, the inevitable happened. They bumped into each other.
"He has that, you know, that particular expression, which is, I think everybody knows, it's just like, 'How can you support that schmuck?'" Schneider said. "He was about to really go at me."
At that moment, Schneider made a decision that runs completely counter to how Hollywood, social media, and cancel culture tell people to behave. Instead of escalating, he disarmed. "I just said, 'I love you,'" Schneider said.
De Niro was stunned, and Schneider, to his credit, doubled down. "No, no, no. No, no, I really love you," he told him, even putting a hand on him. "No, I love you, man."
The result was almost comical. "And he went, 'Okay, okay,'" Schneider said. The confrontation evaporated on the spot.
Schneider didn't pretend this made him some kind of saint. "I'm not always gonna be at my best," he admitted. But he understood something many on the left seem determined to forget. Constant outrage leads nowhere. "The cancel culture, we're not gonna win, and when I say we, I mean, we as a society, we're not going to get anywhere by just … the battle," he said.
Instead, Schneider argued for personal responsibility and basic decency. "We're gonna have to find some common ground," he said, or at least learn "how they're willing to treat other people."
.@RobSchneider, a Trump supporter, shared a powerful moment when confronted by Robert de Niro at SNL’s 50th.
— Jan Jekielek (@JanJekielek) December 28, 2025
De Niro tried to put him on the spot: “How could you support that schmuck?”
But Schneider refused to take the bait.
And he set a beautiful example of how all of us can… pic.twitter.com/QHNzjTE7UK
In a room full of celebrities who talk endlessly about tolerance while doing the opposite, Schneider responded with humility, restraint, and humanity. De Niro, whose Trump hatred is completely unhinged, backed down the moment he ran into something he clearly wasn’t prepared for: kindness.
That tells you a lot about who knows what to do in a conflict situation and who only knows what to do in a safe outrage performance.
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