The Obama administration leapt to Meryl Streep’s defense on Monday after the iconic actress delivered a scathing speech against President-elect Trump during the 74th annual Golden Globe Awards.
“She clearly was delivering a thoughtful, carefully considered message that she believes in deeply,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters, adding that Streep had engaged in a “fairly straightforward exercise of her First Amendment right” to freedom of speech.
Without naming the president-elect, Streep spent several minutes blasting Trump as she accepted an award Sunday night. The award-winning actress, who supported Hillary Clinton in the general election, took particular issue with Trump’s behavior at a campaign rally in 2015 when he allegedly mocked a New York Times reporter who suffers from a congenital joint condition.
“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 a movie, it was real life,” Streep said. “This instinct to humiliate when it’s modeled by someone in the public … by someone powerful, it filters down into everyone’s life because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same.”
Streep was hailed by many of her colleagues in Hollywood, prompting a swift response from Trump on Monday morning.
“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,” he wrote in a series of tweets. “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 story that he had written in order to make me look bad.”
Earnest said Obama shares concerns about his successor but has chosen to “set aside his personal feelings” to ensure a smooth transition from his administration to the next.
