In a new interview, actor Robert De Niro says presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, the openly gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana, could beat “piece of shit Trump” in 2020.

De Niro, 76, is currently promoting his latest film projects, Joker and The Irishman.

Speaking with The Daily Beast, De Niro said that President Donald Trump is a “joke.”

“He's a piece of shit who never should have been there in the first place,” De Niro said. “It's a joke. You look at this fool and you say, what's happening?”

“I'm worried because if he gets re-elected, it's gonna be very, very bad. Very bad on a lot of levels. We already have a lot of reparations, if you will – repairs – to do to the damage that he's already done, and he has to be gotten out.”

(Related: Robert De Niro worries about his gay son “being treated a certain way” under Trump.)

When asked, “So who do you think beats Trump in 2020?” De Niro said that he likes Buttigieg “a lot.”

“I don’t know. I like Buttigieg. [Former Vice President Joe] Biden could get us into calmer waters, that would be a good thing. He means well, and to me, he’s a guy who would do the right thing, make the right decision,” he said.

“But Buttigieg I like a lot. He’s got all the credentials – Rhodes Scholar, Afghanistan veteran – even though he’s young, and if he could get a chance it could be something special, I think. As a gay person, he’s someone who comes from a marginalized community, so people from other ethnic groups can identify with him, even if they’re not gay, because they know what it’s like. I think he’s the best for what we need now. I have friends who really like him a lot, as I do. With Obama, he had the middle name 'Hussein' and a lot of things that people tried to use against him – including Trump with the whole stupid 'birther' thing – and he went right through it. It could happen with Buttigieg.”

De Niro added that he likes Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for president but wondered whether “people are ready for that.” “It's too extreme,” he said, possibly referring to their health care plans.