'Have you built skyscrapers?' Jeanine Pirro rages at Robert De Niro over anti-Trump speech

Fox News commentator Jeanine Pirro launched into a tirade against Robert De Niro on Tuesday, following the celebrated actor's speech in Manhattan near the courthouse where former President Donald Trump's criminal trial is taking place.

This comes as that trial, for business fraud connected to alleged hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, sees closing arguments from both sides, and is set to go to jury deliberations later this week.

"You know, my question for Robert De Niro is, what have you done for New York City, Robert De Niro?" said Pirro, a former judge and prosecutor. "What have you done? Is there a building with your name on it? Have you built skyscrapers? Has the skyline of New York changed because of all your vision?"

De Niro, in his speech, laid out what he saw as the danger to American freedom if Trump is re-elected.

“I don’t mean to scare you. No, wait, maybe I do mean to scare you. If Trump returns to the White House, you can kiss these freedoms goodbye that we all take for granted,” said De Niro.

“We New Yorkers used to tolerate him when he was just another crappy real estate hustler masquerading as a big shot. I love this city. I don’t want to destroy it. Donald Trump wants to destroy not only the city but the country, and, eventually, he could destroy the world.”

De Niro may not have been a real estate developer, but, as The Lincoln Project's Michelle Kinney noted in response to Pirro's rant, he "co-founded Tribeca Film Festival to rebuild and revitalize Tribeca and lower Manhattan after the entire area was decimated on September 11."

Despite having previously been involved in the trial process, Pirro has frequently received criticism for half-baked legal analysis.

For example, following Trump being held liable for over $450 million in a civil fraud case earlier this year, Pirro complained that Trump's bond to appeal the already-decided judgment was much higher than the bonds for pretrial release in the criminal cases of Bernie Madoff or Sam Bankman-Fried.

The problem, as one legal fact-checker noted, was that Trump was found liable in a civil court while Bankman-Fried and Madoff were both convicted in criminal court and were therefore subject to very different laws.

"Trump is not being criminally charged in the civil trial case," replied Juliet Jeske, the journalist who authors the substack newsletter "Decoding Fox News."

"The amount he had to put up is not a bond to keep him out of prison. This is embarrassing for a lawyer and former judge."

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