Robert De Niro and the Zero Day dilemma: Is Netflix scared of Trump?

Robert De Niro is no fan of Donald Trump. Hold the front page! The greatest actor of his generation thinks the president of the United States is a schmuck. He’s called him a jerk, a clown and an idiot. You’re nodding along, right? But he’s not said any of that recently.

On the campaign trail for new Netflix drama Zero Day – in which De Niro plays a former president of the United States called out of retirement to quell the political unrest over a mega-cyber-hack that threatens the infrastructure of the country – the actor has been extremely muted on the subject.

He’s never held back before. When asked about the political situation ahead of last November’s election, De Niro was forthright in his opinions. Like almost everyone in showbusiness, he was backing Kamala Harris. Yet now, promoting a show in which he plays a politician who once brought the country together, why is he so silent?

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There was a press conference with De Niro, co-star Jesse Plemens and showrunner Eric Newman late last month. Big Issue was in attendance. We were invited to submit questions – which would be delivered by the moderator to the Zero Day panel (side note: this is not how we normally interview big names, but all bets were off when it came to De Niro). None of our questions were chosen. Which is fine. But nor were any questions that had anything to do with real politicians – Donald Trump, for example. This in the month that Trump returned to the White House.

Netflix were running a tight ship around all media appearances and interviews related to Zero Day. It was the same story when De Niro went on The Graham Norton Show (sure, not renowned for its political content, but still) and spoke to The Guardian.

If the series was De Niro playing a dentist, a dressmaker or a taxi driver, this would be fair enough. Why should actors have to trot out political opinions every time they have a film, series or play to promote?

But Zero Day is about politics. It is about America coming under extreme threat – either from without or within. And it is about the dangers of unlimited power in too few hands. De Niro is playing a politician who proves in the opening episode that he can bring the people of a deeply divided country together. Zero Day is so pertinent to the current political period.

After a cyber hack takes effect, people take to the streets of Manhattan. De Niro, as ex-president George Mullen, hits the street and takes on conspiracy theorists who are, unsurprisingly, out in force.

“What’s the matter with you?” he hollers. “This is exactly what they want you to do. You’re right I don’t know who they are – none of us do. But if we keep shouting at each other like this, what are we going to accomplish?

“We’re Americans. What are we doing? We’re supposed to be standing up for each other. We’re supposed to be helping each other… You think if you get worked up over some bullshit conspiracy nonsense that won’t make you more afraid? No.

“You’re not behaving like an American or a patriot… You don’t trust the government? I get that. It hasn’t always come through for everybody. But this isn’t about the government or the 1%. It’s about somebody out there that hates us and stands against everything we stand for. You want to offer your thoughts and prayers? That’s great. But please do it from behind the barricades.”

It’s stirring stuff.

Remember The West Wing? Jed Bartlett, played so brilliantly by Martin Sheen, was the fictional president everyone wanted when George W Bush was making disastrous decisions – a deeply unserious president in serious times. That’s as nothing compared to where we are now.

On screen in Zero Day, George Mullen and his committee are given sweeping powers as president Evelyn Mitchell (Angela Bassett), struggles to maintain control of a developing situation. “I am running out of ways to say I have no fucking idea,” she says.

As conspiracy shock jock Evan Green, played by Dan Stevens – continuing his mission to have the coolest post-Downton Abbey career imaginable – harangues him from the sidelines, health complications suggest not everything may be as it seems. And Mullen’s daughter Alexandra (Lizzy Caplin), joins the Zero Day Oversight Commission, offering a vital voice opposing the unprecedented power given to Mullen’s team.

The cast is outstanding. Connie Britton, of Friday Night Lights and Nashville fame plays savvy political operator Valerie Whitesell. McKinley Belcher III – breakout star of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Netflix smash Eric is lead Zero Day Commission investigator Carl Otieno. And Gaby Hoffman (Transparent, Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty, Eric) – surely one of the finest actors around at the moment – is tech billionaire Monica Kidder.

This is a first-rate political thriller on the important subject of large-scale cyber-hacking. While we got last year’s slightly preposterous Nightsleeper on the BBC, this Netflix offering – co-created by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Mike Schmidt – offers an all-too timely look not just at the implications of cyber-attacks, but at the way power works.

Zero Day is serious drama. But what harm would it have done to let De Niro be De Niro and answer questions about Donald Trump on the campaign trail? Give the people what they want. Can Netflix really be worried about possible reprisals?

Well, by contrast with most media big-hitters, Netflix has set itself up as something of a bastion of progressive politics. Co-founder and executive chairman Reed Hastings is a major Democrat donor. He actively (and unsuccessfully) campaigned for both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris and said “Trump would destroy much of what made America great” in 2016 before railing against Trump’s immigration policy in 2017, calling the president’s actions “so un-American it pains us all”.

Netflix also made When They See Us, created by Ava Duvernay, in 2016. This devastating drama about the Central Park Five showed how Trump’s racist rhetoric poisoned minds against the young men wrongly accused of raping a woman in New York in 1989.

Trump has shown himself to be nothing if not thin-skinned, petty and easily provoked. As the president and his loyal lapdog Elon Musk continue to turn culture wars rhetoric into dangerous, divisive policy – using the most powerful office in the US to wreak havoc and take revenge – Netflix could easily come into their sights.

And if Robert De Niro is indeed being silenced, at least for as long as he is on the Netflix dime during the promo of Zero Day, it suggests they are taking the threat of reprisals deadly seriously…

Zero Day is on Netflix from 20 February.

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