On Sept. 16, 2025, actor, director and activist Robert Redford died in his sleep at age 89. As his fans mourned, many shared a purported quote in which Redford criticized U.S. President Donald Trump, saying that he "degrades everything he touches."
Memes on Facebook with variations of the quote were shared thousands of times. According to one widely shared meme, Redford said:
It is painfully clear we have a president who degrades everything he touches, a person who does not understand (or care?) that his duty is to defend our democracy. Our shared tolerance and respect for the truth, our sacred rule of law, our essential freedom of the press and our precious freedoms of speech—all have been threatened by a single man. Trump and his billionaire buddies want to take us back to the days of a political spoils system that served corporate robber barons and left our kids to pay the price.
(Occupy Democrats)
Redford did indeed write the above words, and as such, we rate this as a correct attribution. It should be noted, however, that the meme combines statements from three separate opinion pieces Redford wrote during Trump's first and second presidential terms.
The first section of the meme appeared in a January 2019 opinion piece Redford wrote for The Washington Post titled "Robert Redford: We must defend our democracy — and not by impeachment" (emphasis ours):
It is painfully clear we have a president who degrades everything he touches, a person who does not understand (or care?) that his duty is to defend our democracy. Meanwhile, those who should be providing the balance our Founding Fathers intended, such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), are instead choosing partisan politics, blind loyalty and extreme, outdated ideologies.
The second sentence in the meme appeared in a November 2019 opinion piece he wrote for NBC News titled (archived) "Robert Redford: President Trump's dictator-like administration is attacking the values America holds dear" (emphasis ours):
We're up against a crisis I never thought I'd see in my lifetime: a dictator-like attack by President Donald Trump on everything this country stands for. As last week's impeachment hearings made clear, our shared tolerance and respect for the truth, our sacred rule of law, our essential freedom of the press and our precious freedoms of speech — all have been threatened by a single man.
Redford was referring to Trump's impeachment hearings after the president was accused of breaking the law by pressuring Ukraine to dig up damaging information on Joe Biden, at that time the former vice president. Trump was impeached in December 2019 but acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate.
The last sentence in the meme appeared in a September 2024 opinion (archived) piece for USA Today, in which Redford endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris, then the vice president, for president, primarily due to her approach to tackling climate change. Titled "Robert Redford: Climate change threatens our way of life. Harris knows this" Redford wrote (emphasis ours):
I don't know about you, but I don't hear anyone asking to hobble our government, toss science out the window and slam the brakes on climate action. Nobody, that is, except Trump and his billionaire buddies, who want to take us back to the days of a political spoils system that served corporate robber barons and left our kids to pay the price.
No thanks.
Redford was clearly critical of Trump. As an environmental activist, in 2017 he fought against the Trump administration's plan to approve the 2,100-acre Alton Coal Mine near Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah.
While Redford was known for his many acting roles, we have previously reported how much of the internet knows him as the "Nodding Meme" guy, which is an animated image of a seated bearded man nodding. The popular reaction gif was taken from a scene in the 1972 film "Jeremiah Johnson." Snopes also fact-checked a claim that he once said Trump "found every fault line in America and wrenched them wide open."