Trump hits back at 'overrated' Streep
January 9, 2017
President-elect Trump lashed out at Streep, accusing her of being a sore loser and a Hillary Clinton "flunky" in a series of tweets after the actress had admonished him at the 74th Golden Globe awards ceremony on January 8 for imitating a disabled reporter in 2015 - a charge which Trump denies.
German comedian Jan Boehmermann was among many who took to Twitter to share a video of Trump allegedly mocking the New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski at a rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in November 2015:
Trump maintains that he is being treated unfairly by the press and that at the time he "merely mimicked what I thought would be a flustered reporter trying to get out of a statement he made long ago" - in reference to a row between Trump and Kovaleski dating back to 2001. Trump had also said before that was unaware that Kovaleski had a disability - despite Kovaleski stating that the two had met in person about a dozen times.
Kovaleski suffers from arthrogryposis, which causes joints to seize up.
Appeal to strengthen press freedom
Streep, an outspoken Clinton supporter, attacked Trump not only for his alleged mocking of Stan Kovaleski but also for his divisive rhetoric, as she received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her lifetime achievement at the Golden Globes awards ceremony in Los Angeles.
When Streep took to the stage, she used the third-most-watched awards show in the world after the Oscars and the Grammys to comment on the rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric since Trump's election. Her speech caused an overnight stir on social media outshining much of the reporting on the actual winners, as many of Trump's opponents felt it encapsulated many of their grievances with the President-elect, who is due to be sworn into office later in January. In her acceptance speech, 67-year-old Streep took on Trump without mentioning his name once.
"This instinct to humiliate when it's modeled by someone in the public platform by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody's life," she said, while calling for a strong press and asking the public to support the Committee to Protect Journalists in particular.
Many people appreciated her mention of her recently departed friend Carrie Fisher, quoting the motto of the "Star Wars" actress: "Take your broken heart, make it into art."
ss/jm (AP, AFP, Reuters)