President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter Monday morning to rip Meryl Streep as an “over-rated” actress hours after she bashed him during her acceptance speech at the Golden Globes.
Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn't know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017
Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never "mocked" a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him…….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017
"groveling" when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017
“It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter, someone he outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back,” Streep said, referring to an incident with Trump on the campaign trail. “It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.”
“[This] instinct to humiliate, when it’s modelled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing,” the “Florence Foster Jenkins” actress continued. “Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”
Streep also called on Hollywood to support a free and independent press as we find ourselves entering the Trump era. “We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage,” she said. “That’s why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in our constitution.”