© Carlo Allegri / Reuters
Donald Trump on Monday launched a scathing Twitter attack on actress Meryl Streep, whom he called “over-rated,” following her Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech at the Golden Globes. Streep featured Trump in her speech on Sunday night, attacking the president-elect over his impersonation of Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times reporter who suffers from the congenital condition arthrogryposis. Trump spent a few minutes this morning typing out a three-part message that read: “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 Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never ‘mocked’ a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him ‘grovelling’ 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!” Kovaleski had previously disputed Trump’s assertion that his reporting indicated Muslims in New Jersey publicly cheered on the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
In addition, Trump gave a brief telephone interview to the Times, in which he said: “I was never mocking anyone. I was calling into question a reporter who had gotten nervous because he had changed his story. People keep saying I intended to mock the reporter’s disability, as if Meryl Streep and others could read my mind, and I did no such thing.” He added, “And remember, Meryl Streep introduced Hillary Clinton at her convention, and a lot of these people supported Hillary.”