Meryl Streep's Speech Prompts Criticism From Trump

It's 2017, and we can now add "celebrity beefs" to the list of things our almost-president engages in. In a twist that surprises no one, President-elect Donald Trump's response to Meryl Streep's Golden Globes speech is as purposefully vague and dismissive as we've all come to expect from the soon-to-be leader of the free world. When asked if he'd heard the actress' remarks at the awards show, Trump simply said he hadn't, and called Streep and her ilk "liberal movie people." Update: On Monday morning, Donald Trump responded to Streep's Golden Globes speech with a series of tweets, calling the actor "overrated" and dismissing reports of him mocking a disabled reporter, which had Streep mentioned in her speech, as "more very dishonest media."

Earlier: While it's worth noting that Trump responded professionally by fielding inquiries from The New York Times rather than spouting off on Twitter, his assertion that he hadn't heard Streep's comments is about as plausible as him having never heard of Hamilton before engaging in a rampage against the wildly-popular play in November. To add that he "wasn't surprised" that Streep made negative remarks about him and then using the ever-popular "liberal" insult is tantamount to a schoolyard bully kicking dirt around when losing a fight. Except this schoolyard bully is a billionaire, ran an unprecedented and outrageously successful presidential campaign with no experience and a string of scandals, and is soon to take up residence in the White House.

Tensions between Trump and Streep aren't new — last summer, when a Trump presidency was but an ever-increasingly terrifying joke, Streep dressed up as Trump for a satirical stage production in New York City. Always dedicated to her craft, Streep was barely recognizable with her smeared-on orange self-tanner, a fat suit and her hair styled like Trump's instantly-recognizable toupee. Of course, on Jun. 7, the same day that news broke about Streep's Trump costume, the president-elect himself gave an excellent performance aimed at backpedaling about his allegedly racist comments about the Mexican-American federal judge who, at the time, was handling the Trump University case. As they always say, art imitates life and life is stranger than fiction, or something.

In a way, Trump was actually right about one thing: in a political climate as utterly outrageous as this one, there's nothing surprising about outspoken activists like Streep using their platforms to denounce the man who threatens the well-being of so many Americans. It's regrettable that our politics have devolved to this back-and-forth game between our attention-hungry president-elect and the audience that can't seem to get enough of him. Here's hoping that once he's sworn in, people are as focused on his dangerous policy decisions as much as his trash-talking of celebrities.