Trump hits back at ‘overrated’ Meryl Streep

“Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes,” Trump wrote. “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 ‘groveling’ when he totally changed a 16 year old (sic) story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!”

Streep referred to an incident in November 2015 when, during a campaign rally, he criticized Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times reporter who suffers from a congenital joint disorder. The disorder causes limited movement in the joints, and Kovaleski has limited movement in his right arm, where the disorder is most noticeable.

During that campaign rally, Trump bent his arms in toward his chest and flailed them about while doing an impression of Kovaleski.

Trump also told the New York Times in an interview conducted just after midnight Monday that he wasn’t surprised he was targeted by Streep during her speech.

“I was never mocking anyone,” Trump told the Times. “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.

During her speech, Streep never mentioned Trump by name but very clearly criticized him calling for the press to hold him to account. The portion of her speech about Kovaleski was pointed and very clearly aimed at Trump.

“There was one performance this year that stunned me,” she said. “It sank its hooks in my heart. 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 capacity to fight back.”

Trump also had some thoughts about News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch and criticized reports that he would be asking Congress to pay for his border wall with Mexico.

“Rupert Murdoch is a great guy who likes me much better as a very successful candidate than he ever did as a very successful developer!” Trump tweeted just after 6 a.m.

At about 11:30 p.m., Trump tweeted, “Dishonest media says Mexico won’t be paying for the wall if they pay a little later so the wall can be built more quickly. Media is fake!”