President Donald Trump blasted Bette Midler on Tuesday for tweeting a quote he never made, calling the award-winning singer-actress a “washed up psycho” and a “sick scammer.”
In a scathing tweet, the president wrote: “Washed up psycho @BetteMidler was forced to apologize for a statement she attributed to me that turned out to be totally fabricated by her in order to make ‘your great president’ look really bad. She got caught, just like the Fake News Media gets caught. A sick scammer!”
Washed up psycho @BetteMidler was forced to apologize for a statement she attributed to me that turned out to be totally fabricated by her in order to make “your great president” look really bad. She got caught, just like the Fake News Media gets caught. A sick scammer!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2019
The president’s attack followed a tweet Midler posted on Monday in which she apologized for resurfacing a quote wrongly attributed to Trump calling Republicans “the dumbest group of voters in the country.”
In her apology, she included a link to a Reno Gazette Journal feature debunking the fake quote.
“I apologize; this quote turns out to be a fake from way back in ’15-16,” she wrote. “Don’t know how I missed it, but it sounds SO much like him that I believed it was true!”
I apologize; this quote turns out to be a fake from way back in ’15-16. Don’t know how I missed it, but it sounds SO much like him that I believed it was true! Fact Check: Did Trump say in ’98 Republicans are dumb? https://t.co/NY9s6V49el via @rgj
— Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) June 3, 2019
Trump is in London for a state visit and attended a dinner hosted by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall at Winfield House earlier in the evening. He even retweeted photos and footage from the official Twitter account of the British royal family.
But in the early hours of Wednesday local time, POTUS’ timeline took a critical turn. Around 1 a.m., Trump blasted one of his favorites targets: Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat. About a half hour later, he turned his wrath on Bette Midler.
Midler herself has been tweeting up a storm about Trump’s London visit, posting images of Trump protesters and even criticizing the president’s banquet fashions.
Author and journalist David Simon weighed in on the feud, tweeting: “The President of the United States is engaged in a public battle of namecalling with an actress. Because he has the time, the inclination and, most of all, a keen sense of his role & purpose in our national narrative. This is what needs doing right now. For America and the world.”
The President of the United States is engaged in a public battle of namecalling with an actress. Because he has the time, the inclination and, most of all, a keen sense of his role & purpose in our national narrative. This is what needs doing right now. For America and the world. https://t.co/oXUs3rBLR7
— David Simon (@AoDespair) June 5, 2019
