Politics

Meryl Streep Decries Trump in Her Golden Globes Acceptance Speech

January 9th 2017

In her powerful acceptance speech at the Golden Globes, actress Meryl Streep called out President-elect Donald Trump for mocking disabled New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski back in November 2015. Streep was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award on Sunday night.

Though Trump has since claimed he didn’t know about Kovaleski’s disability, even the president-elect's supporters have criticized his imitation of the investigative reporter. This “performance” by such a powerful figure, Streep explained to the audience, “gives permission for other people to do the same thing.”

meryl-streepAP/Kay Nietfeld - apimages.com

“When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose,” the actress went on to say before asking the press to continue calling Trump out on “every outrage.”

This was met by enthusiastic applause from the crowd. According to Streep, this responsibility to investigate the truth is "why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in our constitution." She concluded by asking the audience as well as the Hollywood Foreign Press to support the Committee to Protect Journalists, which protects the rights of journalists, and, in the words of Streep “safeguards the truth.”

Winner of nine Golden Globes and three academy awards, Streep is known for her powerful — and controversial — speeches. Streep supported Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. In July 2016, she spoke at the Democratic National Convention, where she described, in reference to Clinton’s campaign, how difficult it is to be "the first female anything."

An excerpt of her Golden Globes speech can be seen below.

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