While accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the Golden Globes on Sunday, Meryl Streep delivered an impassioned speech aimed at Donald Trump, slamming the president-elect for his hateful rhetoric and anti-immigration views.
“Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners and if you kick us all out, you’ll have nothing to watch except for football and mixed martial arts, which are not arts,” Streep said.
The legendary actress then referenced the shocking campaign incident from November 2015, when Trump mocked a disabled New York Times reporter during one of his rallies—a performance Streep said truly “stunned” her.
“It sank my heart, it sank its hooks in my heart,” she said. “Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth. 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.”
“I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.”
With Trump’s inauguration less than two weeks away, Streep also called on a “principled press” to hold him accountable over the next four years. Trump took to Twitter shortly after to hit back at Streep, denying he ever “mocked” a disabled reporter.
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
