Meryl Streep won the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes Sunday night in honor of her acting career and many award-winning performances, and gave an acceptance speech that drew the night’s first standing ovation. It also drew the ire of the President-elect, as Streep’s took aim at Donald Trump for his performance on the campaign trail in 2016; a performance which she admitted, “sand its hooks in my heart, not because it was good,” but because “it made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth.”
Streep then got more specific, citing Trump’s infamous mocking imitation of an epileptic reporter as a moment that struck her as especially heartbreaking in a presidential campaign filled with embarrassing moments.
Said Streep:
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. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie; it was real life. And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.
Disrespect invites disrespect; violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.
Surprising absolutely no one, Trump took to Twitter Monday morning to voice his disproval of Streep’s comments, calling her an “over-rated” actress who can’t criticize him because she doesn’t him on a personal level:
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
Streep has yet to release a statement regarding the thin-skinned President-elect’s comments.
