Trump hits back at Meryl Streep, calls actress 'overrated'

DONALD TRUMP hit back at Meryl Streep on Monday, calling her an overrated actress after the three-time Oscar winner condemned the U.S. President-elect's imitation of a disabled reporter.

Streep had turned an acceptance speech at Sunday's Golden Globe awards into a blistering attack on Trump. "This instinct to humiliate when it's modelled by someone in the public platform by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody's life," she said.

Streep and much of Hollywood supported Trump's rival, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, in the November election.

Trump, a Republican, wrote on Twitter: "Meryl Streep, one of the most overrated actresses in Hollywood, doesn't know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes.

"She is a Hillary flunky who lost big."

The tweet was Trump's second public response to the Streep speech. Early on Monday, he said in a telephone interview with the New York Times: "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."

Streep was referring to a 2015 incident at a South Carolina rally where Trump flailed his arms and slurred in his speech in apparent ridicule of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has a physical disability.

In his Twitter comments, Trump repeated his denial that he had mocked the reporter.

Streep, without naming Trump, used almost the entire speech when accepting the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award to criticize the real estate mogul's behaviour and policies, while calling for Hollywood to stand strong against any attacks and to support a free press.